











...- ^ 



3, *'..V A 













*° -^ »Jd 



y >^.% ' 



«.* <<. 













» ^ 




•^ 









<j5°^ 







"bv* 










°o 




> . 



• • s " V 



. . i • • . ^ " .n^ . . . « • - *. 









W 
<£%> 



«• .^ "»* ' 











>>* ."0- K d^//&ZZ5> * *£. « v 



/•' %*^y v : ^\^ %^ f V V^->" v* 

V**S^\v** %/^S^V* \'-??EfV 
















r... v-^^ °^*^^/ V^'V V*" 5 ^** 00 ^ ' 






^•« c0V ^^'/ v ^^/ *^^O^ 



GERMAN MASTERS OF ART 




Photograph by Franz Hanfstaengl 



ALBRECHT DIRER 

Portrait of Himself, 1300 
alte pinakothek, munich 



GERMAN MASTERS 
OF ART 



BY 

HELEN A. DICKINSON 

M.A., Pn.D., HEIDELBERG 

FORMERLY SPECIAL LECTURER IN HISTORY OP ART 

AT NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY 



WITH FOUR ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR AND 
ONE HUNDRED AND TEN IN MONOTONE 




NEW YORK 

FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS 



Copyright, 1914, by 
Frederick A. Stokes Company 



fl 5 



All rights reserved including that of translation 
into foreign languages. 



October, 1914 



NOV -A 1914 



3.A387336 



DEDICATED 
TO 

C. D. 



FOREWORD 

The increase of travel in Germany and the frequent pilgrimages 
that are being made to points of interest to the musician, scholar 
and pedagogue are contributing to the greater appreciation of the 
mediaeval flavour and quaint picturesqueness of her smaller towns 
with their narrow streets and high-gabled timber houses, and to a 
fuller acquaintance with the rich treasures of her art. Whether 
the traveller explores the towns and villages nestling among the 
mountains of Tyrol, seeks out those tucked away in the Black 
Forest, the Vosges or the Harz Mountains, visits the walled strong- 
holds of the Swabian plains, wanders along the banks of the 
Rhine or follows the narrow, picturesque Danube valley to the 
river's source, he will find everywhere imposing castles that are 
veritable treasure-houses of art; ancient monasteries with graceful, 
frescoed cloisters or collections of rare pictures; beautiful or unique 
churches with fine, old, wooden, carved and painted altar-pieces; 
princely, ducal or municipal galleries rich in interesting works 
of art. 

This mounting interest seems to demand a complete and unified 
history of the development of German painting. For the con- 
venience of the student at home and the traveller in Germany the 
artists are here classified broadly, according to the geographical 
distribution of their centres of activity, in the three general 
divisons : 

1. School of Cologne: including Hamburg, Cologne, 

Westphalia and Saxony. 

2. School of Swabia: including the Middle Rhine, 

Upper Rhine, Colmar, German 
Switzerland, Ulm, Augsburg. 

3. School of Nuremberg 

or Franconia: including Tyrol, Upper Bava- 

ria, Ratisbon and Nuremberg. 



viii GERMAN MASTERS OF ART 

These divisions are suggested also by the fact that the art of 
each is marked, in general, by distinct characteristics. The art of the 
School of Cologne is, in the main, dreamy and lyric, that of Swabia 
is a narrative or illustrative art and that of Nuremberg is virile, 
impassioned and dramatic. 

I wish to express my sincere thanks especially to Dr. Henry 
Thode, formerly of Heidelberg University, who first opened my eyes 
to the beauty and significance of German art; to Count von Bernstorff, 
Ambassador from Germany to the United States, Col. Theodore 
Roosevelt and Dr. Lyman Abbott for valuable introductions; to 
Director Lichtwark and Dr. Borger of the Kunsthalle, Hamburg, 
for the loan of photographs of pictures in the Kunsthalle and 
for permission to reproduce illustrations in Dr. Lichtwark's 
"Master Bertram;" to Dr. Max Friedlander of Berlin and Dr. 
Braune of Munich for helpful opinions and suggestions, and to 
those who made it possible for me to see personally all the pic- 
tures described in this volume. 



CONTEXTS 



PART I 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I German Art as an Expression of German National Char- 
acter 3 

II Book Illumination 10 

III Fresco-painting 19 

IV The School of Prague, the Earliest School of Art in 

Germany 35 

PART II 
SCHOOL OF COLOGNE 

HAMBURG 

V Master Bertram van Byrde 41 

VI Master Francke — Heinrich Funhof — Absalom Stumme — 

Heinrich Borneman 52 

COLOGNE 

VII The Idealists: Master Wilhelm and Stephan Lochner . 60 
VIII The Realists: Masters Dominated by the Art of the 

Netherlands 69 

IX The Portraitists of the XVI Century 77 

WESTPHALIAN PAINTERS 

X Master Conrad Stollen — Master of Liesborn — N. Sueln- 
meigr — Johann Koerbecke — Gert Von Lon — Hein- 
rich and Victor DCnwegge — Master of Cappenberg — 
Heinrich Aldegrever — Ludger tom Ring 81 

SAXONY 

XI Lucas Cranach 86 

XII Minor Painters 94 

ix 



CONTENTS 

PART III 
SCHOOL OF SWABIA 
THE MIDDLE RHINE 

CHAPTER PAGE 

XIII Three Frankfort Masters : Master of Frankfort (Hans 

Fyol?) — Master of the House Book (Martin Hess?) — 
Hans Grimmer 101 

XIV Matthaus Grunewald 104 

XV The Question of the Identity of Pseudo-Grunewald . . 114 

THE UPPER RHINE 

XVI Lucas Moser, Conrad Witz and Hans Baldung Grun . .117 
XVII Martin Schongauer and the Colmar School 127 

GERMAN SWITZERLAND 
XVIII The Groups of Painters in Basel, Bern and Zurich . . 132 

ULM 

XIX The Story-Tellers of the XV Century 137 

SWABIA 
XX The Artistic Dependancies of Ulm: Nordlingen, Rothen- 

BURG AND MEMMINGEN 147 

AUGSBURG 

XXI Hans Holbein the Elder 152 

XXII Hans Burgkmair 161 

XXIII Minor Artists 168 

XXIV Hans Holbein the Younger 174 

PART IV 
SCHOOL OF NUREMBERG 

XXV The Tyrolese Painters 191 



CONTENTS 



XI 



UPPER BAVARIA 

CHAPTER PAGE 

XXVI Painters in Munich and Landshut 198 

RATISBOX 

XXVII Albrecht Altdorfer 202 

XXVIII The Pupils of Altdorfer 211 

NUREMBERG 

XXIX The XIV Century 212 

XXX Master Berthold 215 

XXXI Master Pfenning 222 

XXXII Hans Pleydenwurff 228 

XXXIII Michael Wolgemut 232 

XXXIV Wilhelm Pleydenwurff 240 

XXXV Minor Painters 241 

XXXVI Albrecht Durer 248 

XXXVII Pupils and Followers of Durer 271 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

DCrer. Portrait of Himself, 1500 Frontispiece 

FACING 
PAGE 

Schongauer. Virgin and Child in a Rose Arbour 4 

GrPnewald. The Entombment 5 

Pacher. Coronation of the Virgin 6 

Bertram. Saints, carved in Wood and painted 7 

Grunewald. The Temptations of St. Anthony 8 

Wood-Carving: Figure in the Church in Thann 9 

Initial Letter : From the Psalter of Hermann of Thuringia 10' 

Book Illumination: Evangelist, from Charlemagne's Bible 10 

Book Illumination: Monks presenting Bible to Charles the Bald . . . ll/ 

Book Illumination: The Battles of King David 12 

Book Illumination: Parable of the Great Supper 13 

Book Illumination: From Heinrich von Veldegke's "iEneid" 14' 

Book Illumination: "Superbia," from Herrad's "Pleasure Garden" . . 15 
Book Illumination: Minnesingers, from the Manessian Codex (Colour 

Plate) 16 

Fresco: The Last Judgment, St. George's Church, Oberzell 18' 

Frescoes: Isolde and Brag&ne meeting Tristan in the Garden, and Figures 

from the Bathroom, Runkelstein Castle 19 

Frescoes: The Vision of Ezekiel, and Decorative Borders, Church in 

Schwarzrheindorf (Colour Plate) 20 ' 

Frescoes: In the Apse of Brunswick Cathedral 24' 

Painted Wooden Ceiling, St. Michael's Basilica, Hildesheim 25^ 

Fresco: Lords and Ladies dancing, Runkelstein Castle (Colour Plate) . . 28' 

Altar-piece: "The Golden Altar" 82' 

Antependium: From St. Nicholas' Church, Soest 33" 

Theodoric of Prague. Virgin and Child with Saints and Archbishop 

Ocko of Wlaschim 36" 

Master Bertram. God warns Adam and Eve not to eat of the Fruit . . 46" 

Master Bertram. The Angels' Visit 47"" 

Master Bertram. The Nativity 50" 

Master Francke. Angels supporting the Dead Christ 51' 

Master Francke. Thomas a Becket fleeing from Assassins 56" 

Master Francke. The Entombment 57- 

Madonna with the Bean Blossom, Saints Barbara and Catherine ... 62 

Lochner. Madonna in Rose Arbour 63 " 

xiii 



xiv ILLUSTRATIONS 



Lochner. Madonna with the Violet 68 

Master of the Holt Kinship. The Holy Kinship 69 

Master of Saint Severin. The Virgin with Saints and Donors .... 74 

Master of Saint Bartholomew. The St. Thomas Altar 75 •' 

Bruyn. Portrait of Burgomaster Johannes van Ryht 78 y 

Master Conrad. Saints Ottilie and Dorothea 82' 

Master of Liesborn. Angel holding a Chalice 83 ■ 

Aldegrever. Portrait of a Young Man 84 ' 

Cranach. Rest on the Flight into Egypt 88' 

Cranach. The Crucifixion (with Portraits of Cranach and Luther) ... 89' 

Cranach. The Judgment of Paris 92" 

Cranach. Luther, Melanchthon and Frederick the Wise 93' 

Raphon. Annunciation 96 

Master of Frankfort. Virgin and Child with St. Anna 97' 

GrtJnewald. Holy Night 104 

GrUnewald. Saints Erasmus and Maurice in Conversation 105- 

GrUnewald. Angels' Concert 110 

GrUnewald. The Crucifixion * Ill - 

Pseudo-Grunewald. St. Martha with the Dragon 116 

Moser. St. Mary Magdalen Altar 117" 

Witz. Saints Mary Magdalen and Catherine in a Cloister 122 

Baldung (GrUn). Holy Night; Flight into Egypt 123 

Baldung (GrtJn). Allegorical Figure, Music 124 

Schongauer. The Nativity 130' 

Asper. Portrait of Zwingli 134 

Multscher. The Resurrection 138' 

SchUhlein. High Altar in Tiefenbronn 139' 

Zeitblom. The Annunciation 140 

Zeitblom. Vera Icon 141 

Hans, Maler zu Schwaz. Portrait of Ulrich Fugger 142' 

Schaffner. Annunciation 143 

Herlin. Virgin and Child with Saints and the Artist's Family .... 148 

Strigel. Portrait of Emperor Maximilian 149 

Holbein the Elder. St. Paul's Basilica, with Scenes from the Life of 

St. Paul 156 

Holbein the Elder. Saint Barbara and Saint Elizabeth of Hungary . 157' 

Burgkmair. Group of Saints 162 

Burgkmair. Virgin and Child 163 

Ambrosius Holbein. Portrait of Hans Herbst, the Swiss Painter . . . 170 

Amberger. Portrait of Sebastian Munster, the Cosmographer 171 

Holbein. Christ in the Tomb 178 

Holbein. Shutters from the Organ in Basel Cathedral 179 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



xv 



FACING 
PAGE 

Holbein'. Madonna of the Meyer Family 180 

Holbein. Erasmus 181 

Holbein Portrait of Georg Gisze 1 82 

Holbein. Christine of Denmark 183 

Pacher. St. Wolfgang's Last Communion 194 

Pacher. St. Wolfgang compelling the Devil to hold his Bible 195 

Pollack. St. Peter walking on the Waves 200 

Altdorfer. Satyr Family in a Landscape 202 

Altdorfer. St. George in a Beech Forest 203 

Altdorfer. Rest on the Flight into Egypt 204 

Altdorfer. Holy Night 205 

Altdorfer. Battle of Arbela 206 

Altdorfer. Susannah at the Bath (Detail) 207 

Altdorfer. Riches and Poverty 208 

Altdorfer. The Crucifixion 209 

M-vster Berthold. Coronation of the Virgin, from the Imhof Altar . . 218 

Master Berthold. The Crucifixion, from the Bamberg Altar 219 

Master Berthold. Imhof Madonna 220 

Fraxconian Master .about 1430. Virgin in "Wheat Ear" Garments. . 221 

Pfenning. The Crucifixion 226' 

Pfenning. Madonna of Succour 227 

Hans Pleydenwurff. Portrait of Canon Schonborn 230 

Hans Pleydenwurff. The Crucifixion 231 

Wolgemut. The Crucifixion 234 

Wolgemut. Descent from the Cross 235 

Frescoes: In the Council Chamber, City Hall, Goslar 238 

Wilhelm Pleydenwurff. St. Vitus in the Lions' Den 239 

Durer. Portrait Drawing of Himself at the Age of thirteen 250 

Durer. The Nativity 256 

DtfRER. Festival of Rose Garlands 257 

Durer. Christ on the Cross 258 

Durer. Adam 259 

Durer. Madonna and Child in a Landscape (Colour Plate) 260 v 

Durer. Knight, Death and Devil 262' 

Durer. Marginal Drawing, Emperor Maximilian's Prayerbook .... 264' 

Durer. Portrait of Hieronymus Holzschuher 268 

Durer. Four Apostles 269 

Suess von Kulmbach. St. George 274 

Suess von Kulmbach. St. Peter Preaching 275 

Schaufelein. St. Jerome in the Wilderness 278 

Ziegler. (Master of Messkirch.) Virgin Adored by Saints 279 



PART I 



GEEMAN MASTEES OF AET 

CHAPTER I 

GERMAN ART AS AN EXPRESSION OF GERMAN 

NATIONAL CHARACTER 

IN considering the art of any country, it is necessary to examine 
not only into the conditions under which that art developed and 

the traditions by which it was governed in its development, but, 
above all, into the character of the people. For the art of any 
people is the reflection of the common characteristics of that people; 
in other words, a revelation of its attitude toward the inner world 
of feeling and the outer world of phenomena. Hence, when a 
Japanese painter adopts the types and manner of the schools of 
Paris, he ceases to be a Japanese artist and becomes a "man without 
a country." When the German painters of the XVII and XVIII 
centuries strove to be as Raphael, they ceased to be inspired reve- 
lators and became more or less clever craftsmen, makers of 
empty, prettily coloured forms. Certain of the works of Flax- 
man, Canova and Thorwaldsen do not interest us because they 
are not vital; that is to say, instinct with the character — the 
inner life — of the nation out of the fullness of whose heart the 
artist should speak. 

It is for this reason chiefly, that, in turning from the study 
of the art of one country to that of another, a certain mental 
and emotional adjustment is necessary, just as in passing from 
conversation in one language to conversation in a different lan- 
guage. The whole spirit and content of the French language, for 
instance, is as different from German as the French people are 
from the Germans. The same readjustment is necessary in turn- 
ing from the study of Italian art to German art as in passing 
from the engaging melody and flowing rhythm of Rossini to the 
clashing dissonances and triumphant harmonies of Wagner. Ger- 
man art, as the expression of German national character, differs 
widely from Italian art in its ideals as in its significance. For the 

3 



4 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART 

key-note of the Germanic character is emotion, and the ideal of 
German art is, not beauty, but expression. The strength and the 
weakness alike in German art are the outcome of this intense 
emotionalism. 

Its most significant manifestation is the inner perception, the 
insight which differentiates between the real and the apparent— 
between the essence and the phenomenon — which is so greatly 
the German gift and which reveals itself so marvellously through 
the course of the development of German philosophic thought 
from the Mystics to Luther and Kant. What the German appre- 
hends as real is the inner nature— character and emotion— and 
this he expresses in art to the disregard of beauty of external 
form and feature. Hence one of the greatest superficial attrac- 
tions is lacking, for the most part, in German art. Few Ger- 
man Virgins, for instance, can vie with the Italian Madonnas in 
formal beauty. Some of them are homely enough, large-boned 
and plain-featured, but they breathe such passion of mother-love 
and devotion! And the Child is no cherub; like as not he is a 
snub-nosed, flat-faced little chap. Well, what of that? He is not 
loved for his beauty! Thus is revealed the true essence of genu- 
ine motherhood; the same instinct which makes the little girl turn 
from her handsome, life-sized, wax dolls to love with her whole 
heart the most disreputable-looking rag doll in her whole collec- 
tion. "Gefuhl ist alles" (Feeling is everything) said Goethe, giv- 
ing us in these few words the key to German character, German 
art and German music. 

This Germanic perception of the inner life and character of the 
subject, this penetration below the surface, together with the close 
observation of details which is spoken of in the scientific world as 
German thoroughness, made the Germans notably great portrait 
painters, and advanced the landscape from the position of back- 
ground to which it is relegated in Italian art (except Venetian) to 
share equally with the human element in the picture. The earliest 
expression of German religious thought, Mystic Philosophy, adopted 
as practically its basic premise the article that God, the eternal 
essence of all things, is not only in man, but in all nature as well. 
Therefore man has vital interest in all that fives and moves, in all 




Photograph by Ad. Bravn el Cie 

MARTIN SCHONGAUER 

Virgin and Child in a Rose Arbour 

st. martin's church, colmar 



GERMAN ART 5 

that blooms and withers, as one in essence with himself. The "flower 
in the crannied wall" is akin to God, and to know it is to "know what 
God and man is. " It follows that the landscape in its various moods 
can readily be conceived of as reflecting the states of mind of the 
human beings placed in it by the artist; and since these human ele- 
ments possess for the German artist intensely emotional states of 
mind, the landscape is of great value in providing an atmosphere 
which reveals them. This is a function of landscape which we are 
accustomed to regard as extremely modern in poetry and art, but in 
such a picture as the XV century Grunewald "Entombment of 
Christ," in Colmar, the desolation of the landscape with the trees 
cut off half-way, showing only the bare trunks, creates an atmos- 
phere of profound melancholy and stirs our hearts to sympathy 
with those mourners' tears. 

A second expression of the German emotional nature in German 
art is to be noted in the excesses of that art; in the breaking through 
all bounds of law and restraint into excessive movement and exces- 
sive detail. We might almost venture to make the assertion that in 
German art nothing is ever absolutely still. In the illuminated 
initials of the earliest manuscripts, the plants, stems and leaves 
twined about the letters curve and flutter; the carved figures on the 
cathedral portals twist and turn in their endeavour to express the 
sentiments that animate them; their eyes roll, their features are 
distorted, their garments are as if blown by the wind. In the colour 
art, too, there are apt to be hurrying figures, garments f ailing in over- 
abundant, restless folds. Even inanimate things reflect agitation, 
as in the Durer "Madonna with the Pear" in which the gnarled, 
old tree conveys a sense of movement in the almost human 
disquiet of its twisted bark. 

Then too, the highly strung, emotional nature of the Germans, 
contemplating a certain situation, phenomenon, or landscape sees 
every detail and cannot bear to disregard any one of them. Hence 
their pictures are apt to be crowded with figures, each one painted 
with keenest characterisation of the individual, and at the same time 
to contain every tree, shrub, flower, and berry, every rabbit, snail 
and cricket, every stone and bit of moss the painter observes in a 
landscape or lovingly adds from a full heart. The Italian painters 



6 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART 

eliminated much of this detail as confusing, and painted with great 
simplicity what we should call "composed" pictures. This was 
foreign to the nature of the Germans, who never could attain it, even 
consciously, and remain German. Melanchthon reported of Diirer 
that he said that he had "caught glimpses of the original countenance 
of Nature and learned that simplicity was the highest ornament 
of art, but he could not attain it." To this excessive movement 
and detail resulting from the German emotionalism, is due, in large 
measure, the paucity of works of sculpture in Germany. Sculpture 
was the supreme medium of the classic world, where all was beauty 
and perfect proportion without strain of movement or emotion; but 
for the German world with its new watchword, expression, it was 
inadequate. It is interesting to see how the artists strove to break 
bounds by crowding details into relief effects in altars, and to over- 
come limitations by painting the figures on the altars of carved wood; 
even as Max Klinger and others at the present time are endeavouring 
to endow sculpture with painting's prerogatives by using coloured 
marbles and stones, as in Klinger's Beethoven statue in Leipsic 
Museum. 

A third distinctive characteristic of German art as an expression 
of German character is imagination. It lends the fairy-tale atmos- 
phere to the mysterious depth of such forests as we find in Altdorfer's 
Passion scenes; it enables the artist to portray with what we charac- 
terise as intense realism such scenes as those in the Passion of Christ 
in which the villains doing the horrible deed are imagined and 
portrayed as incredibly evil and repulsive; it transcends the bounds 
of what we are accustomed to designate as imagination and passes 
into pure phantasy. Phantastic forms of impossible birds and ani- 
mals, figures half human and half animal, enliven the initials of the 
early missals, while, on the altars, weird shapes render such repre- 
sentations as the "Temptation of St. Anthony" humorous, and are 
oftentimes present as well in the most solemn scenes. It is this 
ungoverned, unrestrained phantasy, together with the Germanic 
humour, which differentiates the German imaginative world and its 
creations from the imaginative world of the Greeks and Italians. 
Indeed the Germanic freedom of humour in art serves of itself to 
distinguish sharply German art from Italian. The only subject 




5ft3» 



Photograph by Fried. Hocflc, Augsburg 

MICHAEL PACHER 

Coronation of the Virgin (Wood-earring) 

CHURCH IN' ST. WOLFGANG, NEAR SALZBURG 



GERMAN ART 7 

which the Italians seem to have felt at liberty to treat humorously 
is the Putti, those bacchanalian, singing and dancing children of 
frieze, pulpit and picture. And it is a significant fact that the 
first to introduce this spark of humour was Donatello, the sculptor 
of the "Crucifixion" on the pulpit in San Lorenzo, the greatest 
tragic artist of them all except Michael Angelo. On looking deeper, we 
find this to be natural enough, for humour is only the reverse side 
of tragedy. The sense of the tragic is based upon a deep, pas- 
sionate insight into the inner meaning of life, its problems, its 
goal and the struggles toward that goal. In art it has found 
its fullest expression in the representation of the perfect God- 
Man, the Ideal, and his tragic relations to the Actual in his life and 
his death. Humour is, on the other hand, the gay and deliberate 
play with the external phenomena of life, manifesting itself mainly 
in exaggeration of their characteristics. This humour in all its 
various moods is present in large measure in German art, from the 
tenderest portrayal, as in Diirer's "Adoration," of the little girl's 
irreverent rabbit, with cocked ears and mischievous eye, who 
will not say his prayers, to the wildest phantasy of a Grunewald's 
"St. Anthony's Temptations in the Wilderness." Its reverse 
side, the tragic, is present also to an extent unparalleled in the 
art expression of any other people. If you will let your memory 
traverse the whole field of Italian art, you will find that the 
subjects which come most readily to mind are the "Madonna 
and Child" in countless representations; the "Holy Conversa- 
tion;" the "Flight into Egypt" and other similar subjects, which 
are beautiful in themselves. On the other hand, recall the gal- 
leries of German pictures and you will find that the subjects 
treated most frequently are those connected with the Passion 
of Christ. In paintings, drawings, woodcuts, etchings, engravings, 
lithographs, we find numberless representations of every scene 
of the Passion from the "Christ in Gethsemane" to the "Entomb- 
ment." The conscientious student who visits the smaller churches 
in Nuremberg, and those in the towns within a radius of some 
thirty miles thereabouts, will be utterly amazed, and depressed 
in spirit as well, by the great altars, each with four or six wings, 
which he finds everywhere, depicting the sufferings of Christ. 



8 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART 

Diirer alone told the story of the Passion in cycle after cycle, as the 
large woodcut Passion in 12 sheets, the small woodcut Passion in 
37 sheets, the copper-plate Passion in 17 sheets, the so-called 
"Green Passion" (on green paper), besides single engravings, 
woodcuts, drawings and paintings. 

To recapitulate: German art as an expression of German 
national character is essentially a great emotional art. Its charac- 
teristics, therefore, are insight — deep penetration into the inner 
life or significance of the subject, with resultant vivid characterisa- 
tion but with relatively scant regard to external beauty; ex- 
cessive movement and excessive detail, observable alike in its archi- 
tecture, sculpture and painting; humour to the degree of the phan- 
tastic; and tragedy, manifesting itself to even the superficial student 
in the manifold representations of the Passion of Christ. 

We have seen that the strength and the weakness alike of German 
art lies in its inevitable voicing of German character. Even this 
brief consideration cannot fail to reveal to us the fact that whenever 
German painting falls short of satisfying us wholly it is not due to 
absence of genius or inspiration on the part of the artists, nor to lack 
of artistic sense on the part of the German people, but to the in- 
adequacy of the medium. Colour art was, after all, but the voice of 
Germany's childhood, when she was striving to express herself and 
had not found the way. All that intense emotional nature and that 
insight into the real which is the mystic sense, which manifested 
themselves in the restless movement, the crowding detail, the humour, 
the phantasy, the deep sense of the tragic which must go hand in 
hand with penetration into life's meaning, all that which German 
sculpture, architecture and painting strove, yea, agonised, to ex- 
press, found voice at last in that art which is the full expression 
of German national character, the Germanic Art of Music. 
Nevertheless there does remain to us a large body of work by 
German painters which has been, until recently, too little known 
and appreciated; work of surprising beauty and of deep interest 
and significance. 

A study of the development of German painting reveals that its 
history is marked off into the following quite distinct periods: 







Photograph by F. Bruckmann A-G, Munich 

MATTHAUS GRUNEWALD 

The Temptations of St. Anthony 
museum, colmar 




Figure Carved in iVood 
in the Church in Thaxx, near Sthassburg 



GERMAN ART 9 

The XIY century; the first half of the XV century; the second 
half of the XV century; the XVI century. 

In the XIV century the painters adhered to the traditions of 
earlier Church art. On their altar-pieces they presented the types 
and employed the technique of the book illuminators and fresco- 
painters. Their people were, in a large measure, typical, ideal in 
outward form and bearing; they lived and moved, for the most 
part, as types and symbols and were only rarely characterised as 
individuals. 

In the XV century the artists began gradually to treat the 
men and women in their pictures as individuals. They endeav- 
oured to give them modelled bodies of flesh and blood, to set 
them in space — that is to say, to gain perspective in their pic- 
tures — and to bring out the peculiarities of feature or expression 
which would mark them as distinct personalities. 

In the second half of the XV century much technical aid as well 
as encouragement toward realism was afforded by the art of the 
Netherlands. The German painters made pilgrimages to the 
studios of the Van Eycks or their pupils to learn the wonderful new 
technique of painting in oils, which lent such sculptural roundness 
to the figures, and the secret of perspective, which gave such depth to 
the landscape which superseded the gold background. 

In the XVI century, with the mastery of these problems, the 
literal realism of the fifteenth gave place, in the works of the greatest 
masters, to a new idealism evolved from the study of nature. While 
using actual persons and things in nature as their models, artists like 
Diirer realised that the presentation, for instance, of such freaks of 
nature as the villainous monsters which appear so frequently in the 
"Passion" pictures of the XV century, is not true realism, since 
these enormities are not natural, but abnormal, and they made the 
actors in their pictured dramas more representative. The difference 
in this respect between the realism of the XV and that of the XVI 
centuries is the difference between modern so-called "realism" — 
or a realistic Caliban — and the realism of Shakespeare's typical 
characters. In short, the art of the XVT century was idealised and 
typical, or universal, and at the same time true to fife, human and 
individual. 




Initial letter, from 
the Psalter of 
Hermann of Thuringia 



CHAPTER II 

BOOK ILLUMINATION 

FROM THE IX TO THE XIV CENTURY 

UCH art as there was in Germany before 
the age of Charlemagne expended itself 
on decoration, in which the band motif, 
adopted from antique art, became Ger- 
manised by being imbued with greater 
movement and by the introduction into 
its curves of plants, birds and animals. 
In the decoration of weapons, of buckles 
and similar personal ornaments, in initial 
letters in such manuscripts as the Orosius 
of the VIII century, these motifs are used 
and combined with originality and expressiveness. Fresh impetus 
was given to art as well as to learning when Charlemagne and 
his successors introduced into Germany the religion and some- 
thing of the culture of the Roman world. Scholars began to 
write books; Bibles, Psalters, Prayer-books were copied or compiled 
and illustrated in the cloisters. The human form began to take 
its place as a subject for representation in art. Types and composi- 
tion alike were, however, within the limitations of a very helpless 
technique, imitations of Early Christian or Byzantine Art. But the 
people are characterised by an emotional intensity which expresses 
itself in the movements of their bodies and of their garments and in 
their animated gestures. Thus, for example, in Charlemagne's Bible, 
in Vienna, the Evangelist, a Byzantine type, is seated on a Byzantine 
throne; the hair is long, the beard more pointed than we are ac- 
customed to in antique art, the eyes abnormally large, the nose 
straight with wide nostrils, the mouth small with rather thick lower 
lip. The upper part of the body is much too long in proportion to the 
lower half; the hands which hold pen and book are long, with fingers 
sharply curving back from the first joint; the feet are bare, the toes 

10 




Evangelist, From Charlemagne's Bible 
bibliothkqre natioxale, paris 




Monks Presenting to Emperor Charles the Bald an Illuminated Bible 
bibliotheque nationale, paris 



BOOK ILLUMINATION 11 

curled inward. The drapery of the garment is laid in folds, not, 
however, the formal, quiet folds of classic art, but folds that curve and 
twist in every direction, instinct with independent life and motion. 
The trees and reeds which form the background also wave as if tossed 
by the wind. 

In the Paris "Gospel" the illustrations show, in the main, 
the same characteristics. The Emperor Lothair is presented seated 
upon his throne, the right hand resting on his scepter, the left ex- 
tended, forefinger raised. But, though seated, he seems to be 
momentarily about to rise suddenly and the two soldiers in attend- 
ance behind the throne regard him with great intensity, the expres- 
sion of their bodies one of instant readiness to wait upon his 
every movement. 

In Charles the Bald's Bible in the Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris, 
which is the finest example of Carolingian miniature painting, the 
dedication picture shows the Abbot and all the monks of the monas- 
tery in which the Bible was copied and illuminated, in excited at- 
tendance upon the ceremony of its presentation to the enthroned 
Emperor, their eager gaze and uplifted hands expressing great 
admiration for the handsome volume. 

The Bible illustrations are, however, not all so schematic, 
so defined by precedent. Occasionally a subject offers opportunity 
for naive naturalness and spontaneity of treatment. Thus the 
Battles of King David are pictured with life and vigour. The 
army really marches, the men on horseback are grim and deter- 
mined warriors, the horses really go. The drawing is childish, 
the horses are red, violet, or any colour the artist thinks would 
look well in his picture, but the figures live and move. In all 
the work of this period the drawing is untutored and unsteady, 
the colours applied locally without any attempt at colour har- 
mony. Gold is much loved and lavishly used, in decoration, as 
a fining for the garments and in the writing itself, as in the so- 
called "Codex Aureus," examples of which may be seen in 
Treves, St. Gallen, and Munich. The technical process was 
simple enough; the outline was drawn, then filled in with colour, 
after which fight and shade were added with little discrimi- 
nation and no mercy; the bridge of the nose, the eyelids and 



12 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART 

knuckles receiving sharp, white dabs or lines of white, while the 
recessions were "shadowed" with dark green. The folds of the 
garments were drawn with heavy black lines. The surface re- 
ceived a very high finish, whether from the lustrous character of 
the crayons used or from the application of a varnish, has not 
yet been discovered. There was also another process of paint- 
ing, which consisted in simply washing over a pencil drawing with 
thin water-colours without any indication of fight and shade. 

The field of art was practically limited to the illustration or 
illumination of Bibles, Gospels, Psalters, Books of the Mass and of 
Prayers. There were also the Canonical Tables (Canonestafeln) , tabu- 
lations of the corresponding passages from the four Gospels, which 
permitted of an architectural design for their setting or framing. In 
a fragment of the Canonical Tables of St. Medard at Soissons, dating 
from about the year 827, we find the parallel passages set in between 
five columns which support a round arch. Among the leaves on the 
capitals of the columns are heads of animals and men who are strain- 
ing to support the weight of the arch upon their shoulders; on top of 
the arch, to the right and left, are peacocks in full glory of 
spread feathers; in the middle, on a gold ground, is a round 
medallion of an Evangelist, which is held up by two winged 
angels who accomplish their task only by dint of much effort, 
movement and intentness. Very elaborate are the marginal 
decorations and initial letters in these sacred books and the 
various motifs — vines, leaves, blossoms, birds and human beings — 
are introduced with remarkable skill and naturalness. 

With the fall of the Carolingian dynasty, Germany became, in 
919, a really separate nation under Henry the Saxon. In this tenth 
century a change and development in the character of German art is 
noticeable. The Life of Christ is presented in fuller detail and 
although the types of the central figures continue to be defined by 
Early Christian and Byzantine art traditions, the minor figures 
wear the costumes of the period and demean themselves in a natural 
rather than a prescribed manner. Indeed the artists seem to delight 
in every opportunity to heighten the human and characteristic in 
any scene. In a representation of "Christ Driving the Money- 
changers out of the Temple," one money-changer stumbles along 




Irsy ktxm s o b AU~ir ccyytKrvr 

\0 AB • 1 X p£K,cy 5 5 IT I DO H lNVxL 



The Battles of King David 
from the golden psalter, st. callen 




Parable of the Great Supper (Like XIV) 

FROM THE "ECHTEHNACH" GOSPELS, DUCAL LIBRARY. GOTHA 



BOOK ILLUMINATION 13 

with a bird cage of which the door has been jarred open so that the 
birds are escaping. In a picture of "Christ taken Prisoner" the 
High Priest's servant, whose ear has been struck off by Peter, is wholly 
a burlesque figure. The figures of the messenger and the cripples, in 
the parable of the man who gave a feast to guests from the highways 
and hedges, are presented with naive realism in the Echtcrnach 
Bible, Gotha, illuminated under that Archbishop Egbert of 
Treves (977-993) whose "Egbert Codex" is typical of the early 
art of western Germany and a suggestive forerunner of its later 
art, as the "Vita Codex" in Munich is of the art of eastern 
Germany. 

The Canonical Tables, too, offered opportunities for the in- 
troduction of realistic scenes, such as common men about the 
day's work. Thus the construction of their architectural framing 
was frequently held to represent the building of some cathedral, 
and such a picture presented as that in which the carpenters are 
busy planing boards or are driving nails with tremendous expen- 
diture of energy. 

Very gradually, yet more and more decidedly, did Latin influence 
decline and Germanic national spirit assert itself. In the next two 
centuries two important political movements furthered this develop- 
ment of German intellectual independence. The bitter warfare 
between the Emperor Henry IV (1055-1106) and Pope Gregory VII, 
with the ensuing century-long struggle between church and state, 
served to separate German art from the source of traditions, and 
to leave it free to follow its natural bent. For while, on the one 
hand, this struggle upset the peace of many a cloister and interfered 
in some measure with opportunities for scholarship, it, on the other 
hand, roused clergy and laity alike to independent consideration of 
the real basis of Christianity, of the foundation of Christian faith 
and Christian hope in the life and death of Christ. 

It was doubtless due in part to this revival of devotional feeling, 
in part also to the passionate religious enthusiasm of those women 
who in the XI and XII centuries founded the cult of Mysticism, that 
the Passion of Christ, which had heretofore not received any greater 
degree of attention in art than the other incidents of his life, became 
one of the most frequently recurring themes; and whereas the earlier 



14 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART 

representations of the crucifixion conveyed nothing of suffering 
or of exaltation, but presented the Christ hanging upon the cross, or 
calmly standing before it with wide open eyes, as purely a symbol, 
they now began to express in some measure the agony of the Sin- 
bearer and to grow gradually more and more instinct with personal 
interest in and feeling for the suffering borne. 

The effect of the struggle between the church and the world was 
not confined, however, to the awakening of a more universal and 
individual interest in the Christian story. The world asserted it- 
self — the German world — and literature and art turned from exclu- 
sively religious to secular themes. The language, too, most com- 
monly used henceforth was the language of the people. The Romance 
of Rudlieb about the middle of the XI century was the last attempt 
to tell a German story in the Latin language. This movement at 
once toward secular thought and a new nationalism was vastly 
furthered by the Crusades. Those pilgrimages to the Holy Land 
were not only great religious movements, they were powerful social 
forces. From the frugal life of their small towns the German "War- 
riors of the Cross" passed into the rich, luxurious, colourful life of 
the Orient. They were stirred by the spirit of adventure and ro- 
mance; notwithstanding their religious fervour they were more likely 
to develop on the side of worldliness than of asceticism. Then, too, 
they came into close touch with the French crusaders, with their 
higher degree of culture and their already rich national literature, 
and they were spurred to emulation. They began to re-tell their 
ancient sagas in verse and in pictures. The middle of the XII cen- 
tury saw the endeavour to unite old fragments into a great epic in the 
"Nibelungen Lied," and this, too, in the German Language. But not 
only did the Germans hear from the French the stories of Charle- 
magne and his court and of King Arthur and his Table Round, which 
brought about the translation of the "Song of Roland," and inspired the 
"Tristan" of Godfrey of Strassburg, the "Parsifal" of Wolfram von 
Eschenbach; they heard also the skilful and charming songs of the 
knightly troubadours, and poets like Rudolf von Strubenburg, Wolfram 
von Eschenbach, and Walther von der Vogelweide adopted the manner 
and sang their "Minne-songs" in praise of love and the beloved. 
And since art was, for the most part, concerned with book illustration, 







Scenes from the Life of .Eneas 

FROM HEINRKH VON VELDEGKe's .-EXEID, ROYAL LIBRARY, BERLIN 







"Superbia" 
from the "pleasure garden" by herrad von landsperg 



BOOK ILLUMINATION 15 

the effect on art was naturally the same as on literature. One of the 
earliest combinations of the religious and the profane in subject, as 
well as of the old traditions and the new manner in treatment, was 
the "Pleasure Garden" (Lustgarten, Hortus Deliciarum) compiled 
in 1167 by the nun Herrad of Landsperg for Abbess Relindis of that 
cloister. In this "Pleasure Garden" Herrad was commissioned to 
bring together all the learning of the period concerning astronomy, 
geography, philosophy and the other sciences, in conjunction with 
the Bible — since, to the Church, the sciences were still but handmaids 
of theology. The illustrations fill more space than the text and, 
except in the scenes from the Life of Christ, which are faithfully pre- 
sented in accordance with churchly traditions, show such close ob- 
servation of all details of life in the homes and on the streets, that 
this "Pleasure Garden" is one of our most important sources of in- 
formation about the life and manners of that period.* 

To the same period as the "Pleasure Garden" belong two 
works now in the Royal Library in Berlin, "The Song of the 
Virgin" (Das Lied von der Maget) with its naturalistic illustrations 
by Wernher of Tegernsee, winch was finished in 1173, and 
Heinrich von Veldegke's "iEneid," in which, as it treats of a purely 
secular subject, the artist can freely follow his own impulses without 
restraint from the side of churchly traditions. To a somewhat 
later period, the first half of the XIII century, belong two works 
of historic and romantic as well as artistic interest, the Psalterf 
of the crusader Landgrave of Thuringia, with its elaborately 
decorated initials and symbolical illustrations, and the more richly 
illustrated Prayerbook of St. Elizabeth, who came to the Wartburg 
in 1211, at the age of four years, to be brought up as became 
the future wife of the Landgrave's son, afterward Ludwig IV. 

Passing over many similar works of the XIII century which 
show no markedly different characteristics, we enter the century 
which was at once the most prolific of all in book illumination and 

* The original was burnt in the fire that destroyed Strassburg Library in 1870, but a large 
number of the pictures had been traced off or copied previous to that time, so that we have definite 
knowledge of them, in spite of the loss of the original. Some of the most satisfactory and access- 
ible copies are those made by Count Bastard, in the National Library in Paris. 

t Eoyal Library, Stuttgart. 



16 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART 

the last in which it occupied any considerable position or was prac- 
tised to any great extent as an art. 

The most important work of the first half of the XIV century is 
the "Chronicle of the Pilgrimage to Rome of the Emperor Henry VII 
and his Brother Balduin." In seventy-three pictures the story of the 
pilgrimage is told in great detail and with the vividness of an eye wit- 
ness. The figures are unskilfully drawn, the horses wooden, the 
hands altogether impossible in their shapes and positions, but an 
effort at individualisation is evident, and such a picture as the "Death 
of the Emperor" is full of expression. The technique is of the sim- 
plest, the outlines are drawn in ink, the tinting is done in water- 
colours. 

Of great interest and of a higher degree of beauty is the "Pas- 
sionale" compiled from Frater Colda's "Passionale" and illustrated 
by Canonicus Benessius for Princess Kunigunde, daughter of King 
Ottokar of Bohemia and Abbess of St. George's Cloister on the Hrad- 
schin, Prague. The slender figures are of a refinement which suggests 
French influence, the drawing is clear and delicate, the pictures 
possess much poetic charm. The attitudes are reasonable, the ac- 
tions full of life. The Christ Child is lively and natural, and such 
scenes as those of the Crucifixion and Entombment are given with 
fine feeling. 

The most profusely illustrated books of the century were the 
Picture Bibles, known as "Armenbibeln" — or Bibles for the poor 
and illiterate — which, with the illustrated books of law and his- 
torical chronicles, permit us to follow closely the development of 
the various branches of the art of book illumination. 

But while Bibles, chronicles and law books were the expression 
of the masses of the people, the upper classes, as we have seen, largely 
through the influence of their contact with the more scholarly and 
elegant French warriors in the Crusades, had developed a knightly, 
courtly, poetical literature of Minne-song. Naturally, illustrated 
collections of these songs were made and we find these knights and 
poets and the gracious ladies to whom they address their Minne-songs 
and from whom they receive the laurel, pictured in the twenty-five 
illustrations in the Weingartner Codex which was compiled about 
1280 near Constance, and is now in the Library of the King of Wuert- 




From the Jlnnessinn Codex 



MlNNESINGERS 
HEIDEI.BEHG UNIVERSITY I.IMIAHY 



BOOK ILLUMINATION 17 

tenberg, and in the one hundred and forty-one illustrations of the 
Manessian Codex in Heidelberg University Library, compiled about 
the end of the XIII century. The representations are without depth, 
yet not without a certain charm. French influence is marked in the 
softer lines, the greater refinement of form and feature, the more 
graceful disposition of the folds of the garments. The types are at 
the same time more courtly and more effeminate. The ideal for men 
and women alike is a small head, rounded forehead, arched nose, 
small, full-lipped mouth, round and dimpled chin, narrow shoulders 
and slender hips. It is a type childish, immature, appealing. The 
servants are carefully distinguished from their masters by being 
made small and undersized; so, for instance, the two who are ar- 
guing almost under the horses' hoofs in the "Herzog Heinrich" 
in the Manessian Codex. Similar in content, illustrated with pic- 
tures of battles and of tournaments watched by lovely ladies from 
the castle walls is the codex in Cassel done by Wilhelm of Oranse in 
1334 and containing thirty-five finished and twenty-five unfinished 
illustrations. 

French influence was especially marked in Prague where Karl 
r\ r , who had been educated at the court of Valois, became King of 
Bohemia in 1333, founded the first school of painting in Germany 
and gave considerable impetus to the art of book illumination. The 
chief work of his reign was the Breviary of the Imperial Chancellor, 
Johann of Xeumarkt, Bishop of Leitomisch from 1353 to 1364, 
which is now in the Bohemian Museum, Prague. Among the charac- 
teristically French touches are the introduction of Gothic features in 
the architecture, and of the "Dr61eries" so beloved in France — those 
joyous, satirical or fantastic scenes introduced in miniature behind 
the curving vines of the ornamental work. 

Written in the Czech language was the "Manual of Christian 
Verities" (Lehrbuch der Christlichen Wahrheiten), in the Univer- 
sity Library, Prague, which was illustrated by Thomas Stitny, 
who died about 1400. The types are more vigorous and poses 
much more natural and expressive than in the earlier works. 

For Emperor Karl's son and successor, Wenzel, Willehalm of 
Oranse illustrated, in 1387, the Bible which is now in the Am- 
bras Collection, Vienna, in which the pictures are, in the main, 



18 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART 

amazingly worldly in character, as are those in Wenzel's six- vol- 
ume German Bible in the Imperial Library. King Wenzel was 
possessed by a great love for a maiden who was an attendant at 
the baths, and she figures with the King in every possible scene 
in the pictures in these Bibles. 

In Austria, in 1386, Johann of Troppau finished a Bible* for 
Archduke Albrecht I, in which the men and women are of much 
beauty and charm. Of still greater interest is the German transla- 
tion of the "Durandi rationale divinorum officiorum," begun in 1384, 
illustrated by one Hans Sachs, a master who enjoyed great fame in 
Vienna as "Painter to the nobly-born Prince Albert of Austria." 
The figures, often very small, are drawn with great surety; lightly 
draped, they show careful modelling, while the heads express in each 
case distinct individuality. The ornamental work is elaborate and 
very beautiful; the brush is handled in quite the manner of the easel 
painter and effects a treatment which is broad yet fine. 

But with the close of the XIV century, book illumination ceased 
to hold its place as the chief of the arts. Painting ceased to be con- 
fined to the monasteries and became a worldly vocation, and the 
energies of the painters were expended on altars and portraits. 
After the middle of the fifteenth century the invention of print- 
ing did away with the necessity for the slow copying of books 
by the monks, and for the elucidation of the text or the beauti- 
fying of these printed books engravings, etchings, woodcuts and 
drawings took the place of the painter's illuminations. 

* Vienna Imperial Library. 





1. Isolde and Bragane Meeting Tristan in the Garden. 2. Figures from the Bathroom 
frescoes, rinkelstein castle 



CHAPTER III 

FRESCO-PAINTING 

FROM THE IX TO THE XIV CENTURY 

PARALLEL to book illustration the art of fresco-painting 
developed, though the number and extent of the frescoes 
remaining to us are comparatively limited. 
We find it recorded that, as early as the IX century, the Em- 
peror Charlemagne caused the dome of his church in Aix-la-Chapelle 
to be decorated with mosaics, bringing in, doubtless, Italian artists 
to do the work. In Carolingian times, too, the cloister church in 
Fulda was decorated by one of the monks with frescoes on a dark 
blue ground. Very interesting must have been the frescoes painted 
in the Castle at Ingleheim in the reign of Louis the Pious. In the 
chapel were pictured, on the one side, scenes from the Old Testament, 
on the other, scenes from the Life of Christ, while in the great hall 
were the deeds of famous pagan and Christian heroes. In this 
series, also, Charlemagne's descent was traced from Constantine 
the Great. Unfortunately these have all suffered destruction in 
the course of the centuries. 

The earliest frescoes remaining to us date from about the year 
1000 and are in St. George's Church in Oberzell on Reiehenau Is- 
land. These represent in eight pictures the miracles of Christ: 
the Raising of Lazarus, Raising of the Daughter of Jairus, Bringing 
to Life of the Son of the Widow of Nain, Healing of a Leper, Driving 
out of Devils, Healing of the Paralytic, Stilling of the Storm at Sea, 
Restoring of Sight to the Blind; then the Crucifixion and the Last 
Judgment. It is interesting to note that the Christ in these frescoes 
is the beardless Christ of Early Christian Art, as in the Catacombs; 
the Apostles and Saints are of the types found in the mosaics, with 
inexpressive countenances and staring eyes, but they all are in mo- 
tion and gesticulating. The garments are, in the main, of antique 
fashion, though occasionally secondary personages appear in the 
costume of the period. The colours are light and without glaze. 

19 



20 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART 

In the years between 1151 and 1156 were painted the frescoes 
in the double church at Schwarzrheindorf near Bonn. The church 
is a beautiful, small building in Romanesque style (the spire is new) 
with, on the outside, a gallery on which the student may walk around 
the church and observe the graceful row of small columns with 
carved capitals in different designs of leaves and animals. Inside, it 
is divided into two storeys, like the Church of St. Francis at 
Assisi, which was built a century later in the Gothic manner. 
The lower church was the common assembling room of all the people 
for the mass; in its ceiling is an hexagonal opening through which 
the nuns, who sat in seclusion in the upper church, might see and 
hear the service. The pictures on the walls and ceiling of the lower 
church represent scenes from EzekiePs Vision of the corruption of 
Jerusalem and the judgments to come upon her for her sins; those 
in the upper church, the Vision of St. John on Patmos, with the 
New Jerusalem which was opened before him in that vision. The 
frescoes are done on blue ground and are, even in their present 
carefully restored condition, very decorative in line and colour. 
The people all wear the traditional robes and are not individual- 
ised in any degree, but all look ahke, save that some wear beards 
while the majority do not. Great minuteness of characterisation 
is, indeed, hardly to be expected at so early a date as a century 
before Cimabue painted his frescoes in the church at Assisi. The 
bodies are flat and undetached from the background and are, in 
many cases, set in the various triangular spaces in poses no 
human being could possibly assume. Yet the attitudes, gestures 
and movements are, on the whole, exceedingly expressive. The 
bearded prophet doubled over in the sleep in which there comes 
to him the vision of a wheel with a man therein is unmistakably 
sound asleep; the youthful looking, beardless man making a hole 
in the wall of the city with a pick conveys by his attitude great 
eagerness to see what is on the other side, while on that other 
side, the idolators swinging censers before all sorts of fish and reptile 
abominations do so with intense fervour of gesture though with ex- 
pressionless faces. Ezekiel, who has cut off a lock of his hair with 
his knife, weighed it in the balances, consigned a fourth to the wind, 
a fourth to the sword and a fourth to the flames, gathers up the re- 





i\Wj| 



Q 2 



FRESCO-PAINTING 21 

mainder in his garment with an expression of most sentimental 
tenderness. 

In the arches of the transepts arc scenes from the Life of Christ. 
In the "Driving out the Money-changers from the Temple" the idea 
of an inside room is conveyed by a gate or door through which 
one of the expelled is being urged, bearing his scales in one hand, the 
other upraised in protest. In the "Transfiguration" the disciples are 
most curiously crumpled up on the ground as if wholly overcome by 
the revelation. The "Crucifixion" presents Christ, the Virgin and St. 
John, and, contrary to custom in the mural paintings of the period, 
which usually content themselves with the small symbolic group of 
three, introduces Longinus and Stefaton — the man with the vinegar 
sponge — and also three inactive though interested onlookers. The 
Crucified is presented according to Byzantine tradition, his body 
draped, his feet nailed separately to the cross. 

On the walls of the transept are pictures of Emperors and Kings 
of the period. 

The decorative bands of leaves and birds separating the story- 
telling sections are of great beauty of design and colour. 

The frescoes in the upper church possess much less character 
and interest than those in the lower church. In the apse is shown 
the New Jerusalem, in the midst of which Christ is seated on his 
throne, which is upheld by the founders of the church, Bishop Arnold 
and his sister. Around the throne are the martyrs and the symbols 
of the four Evangelists. In the arch above, Christ is again pictured 
surrounded by apostles, martyrs and saints. On the left wall of the 
apse is St. John, physically on Patmos, spiritually at the guarded gate 
of heaven marked Portarius, gazing at the figure of the Christ which 
is revealed to him in a burst of flame. 

Somewhat later, dating from about 1180, are the frescoes in 
the ceiling of the former Chapter House, now a reformatory, in Brau- 
weiler near Cologne, illustrating the eleventh chapter of the Epistle 
to the Hebrews and legends of martyrs and saints; as Mary Magda- 
lene and the repentant thief who was pardoned on the cross, Daniel 
and St. Thekla closing the mouth of the lion; Cyprian the Sorcerer 
and St. Justine quenching the fire; St. iEmilian unhurt by the sharp 



22 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART 

sword; Samson, Peter, Stephen and the others who triumphed through 
faith. 

Belonging to the same period are the "Ten Apostles" in the Church 
of St. Cunibert and the very badly damaged remains of paintings in 
the crypt of Sta. Maria in Capitol, in Cologne. Considerably in 
advance of these technically are the XIII century figures of 
saints with the Emperor Henry II and Bishop Engelbert in the 
Baptismal Chapel in St. Gereon's Church in Cologne, in which, in 
spite of their defacement, the forms possess a certain stateliness. 
The garments hang in full, curiously massed and broken folds, 
rather like piles of material than like draped robes. 

The frescoes in the Church of St. Mary in Lyskirchen, Cologne, 
painted about 1280, have been thoroughly restored. They present 
scenes from the life of Christ, from the life of St. Nicholas and from 
the martyrdom of various saints. Most of the forms are typical; 
some few show an attempt at individualisation, but it is difficult to 
say how much of this is original, how much the contribution of the 
restorer. 

In Cologne Cathedral are frescoes in the choir stalls which date 
from shortly after 1322. On the Gospel side, which was the Pope's 
side, are scenes from the legends of St. Peter and St. Sylvester; on 
the Epistle side, which was the Emperor's side, the "Adoration of the 
Three Kings." Below these are pointed arcades, in which are, on the 
one side, bishops, on the other, emperors, in statuesque poses. Above 
the pointed arches, on a reddish brown background, are introduced 
drbleries such as we meet with in book illustrations — gay little 
figures looking out from among vines, with, below them, a sort of 
frieze of inscriptions with decorative initials. These frescoes are in 
tempera and are painted almost directly on the stone work. Un- 
fortunately they are now draped with tapestries and are therefore 
inaccessible. 

A little later than these frescoes in Cologne Cathedral, but still 
in the first half of the XIV century, frescoes were painted in 
the church in Ramersdorf in the Seven Mountains near Bonn, which 
have been destroyed, but of which a good idea may be gained from 
the aquarell copies in the Berlin Print Room. In the chancel were 
scenes from the Life of Christ; on the arches, God the Father as 



FRESCO-PAIXTIXG 23 

Creator of the world with the four signs of the elements. In the 
arches of the nave were represented the Coronation of the Virgin, 
with music-making angels and St. Michael and the Dragon; in the 
arches of the aisles, St. Elizabeth, St. Catherine and the Last Judg- 
ment. Christ is presented as judge of the world, on either side are 
the Virgin and St. John and angels bearing the instruments of his 
Passion. On his right are the just, on his left the unjust, among 
whom are many nuns and monks, knights, princes and fine ladies. 
Abraham receives the souls of the just and Satan the soids of the 
wicked. The forms are of exaggerated slenderness and very flexible 
in line, the heads too small in proportion to the bodies, the arms and 
legs very thin, the faces round, the hair wavy. The folds of the 
garments are soft and often quite beautiful in draping. The music- 
making angels are winsome, the innocence and gentleness of the saints 
are most appealing, but the characterisation of the wicked was quite 
beyond the artist's powers. 

In Westphalia, the oldest frescoes, painted in 1166, are in St. 
Patroclus' Cathedral in Soest and present Christ, in heroic size, en- 
throned, surrounded by apostles with the Virgin and St. John. A 
frieze with half-length pictures of saints divides this scene from a 
series of emperors enthroned under baldachins. The figures are of 
great dignity, the garments hang in simple folds. 

The mural paintings in St. Nicholas' Chapel in Soest date from 
the beginning of the thirteenth century. They represent Christ, the 
Twelve Apostles and Saints. 

To the same period belong the frescoes in the church at Methler 
near Dortmund, representing Christ enthroned, the Annunciation, 
Peter and Paul and two other saints. The figures of Christ, Peter 
and Paid are those with which we are familiar in mosaic art; but in 
the Annunciation the types are strangely Jewish, the eyes, though 
round, are not staring, the hair is tossed, the movements are sudden, 
the folds of the garments restless. 

To the latter part of the XIII century belongs the now thor- 
oughly restored picture in the transept of the Cathedral in Miin- 
ster, which commemorates the subjection of the Frisians to the 
spiritual power of the Bishop of Miinster in 1270. The fresco 
has been so restored that nothing of the original remains to 



24 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART 

us but the composition. In the middle is the patron saint of the 
Cathedral, St. Paul, whom groups of Frisian peasants approach, 
bearing gifts of eggs, lambs, horses, and other tribute. 

In Saxony, in the Neuwerkkirche in Goslar, the fresco in the 
apse was painted about the time the church was built, in 1186; but 
has been thoroughly restored. It represents the Virgin enthroned, 
surrounded by seven doves, which represent the seven gifts of the 
Spirit, and holding on her knee the Christ Child, while St. Peter and 
St. Paul and two angels kneel in worship before her.* 

To the same period belongs the "Death of the Virgin" in the en- 
trance hall of the Wiedenkirche in Weida, and also the "Virgin and 
Child with Four Apostles," in the Chapel of the Liebfrauenkirche, 
Halberstadt. The frescoes in the church itself are much later, dat- 
ing from about 1280. 

The most imposing mural paintings in Saxony are those in the 
choir of the Cathedral in Brunswick, which is a veritable Picture- 
Bible. They have undergone restoration so thoroughly that any 
very definite estimate of the original types and colouring is not pos- 
sible. Schnaase records of them in his History that "the figures 
originally were done in outline lightly filled with colour and possessed 
none of the hard brilliance restoration has given them." The con- 
ceptions and composition are, however, most interesting; and though, 
in the bright daylight of the nave, the pillars and remains of figures 
restored are garish, in the gloom of the choir the colour effect is one 
of great beauty. The frescoes on the ceiling represent, on a blue 
ground, the Genealogical Tree of Christ, springing from its root in 
Jesse, and growing so as to form a frame for the enthroned Madonna 
of Byzantine type. In the upper sections of the walls are scenes from 
the Old Testament: The Sacrifices of Cain and Abel, Abel's Murder, 
Moses in the Burning Bush, The Brazen Serpent, and Moses Receiv- 
ing the Ten Commandments, which here are written, not on tables, 
but on a parchment roll. Below these, in horizontal rows, scenes 
from the legends of the patron saints of the Cathedral, St. John, St. 
Blasius and St. Thomas of Canterbury, are given in great detail. 

* The interesting frescoes in the Rathaus in Goslar date from the XVI century and are attrib- 
uted in ancient chronicles to Michael Wolgemut, in connection with whose works they will be 
considered. 




Frescoes in the Apse of Brunswick Cathedral 



FRESCO-PAINTING 25 

The ceiling of the crossing is enclosed, as it were, by a wall, 
which represents the wall of the Heavenly Jerusalem and in each 
of the twelve towers of which stands an apostle. Within the en- 
closed field are pictured the Nativity, Presentation in the Temple, 
the Marys at the Grave, the Walk to Emmaus, the Supper at 
Emmaus and the Descent of the Holy Ghost. In the small 
wedge-shaped spaces outside the city wall are prophets. 

In the southern transept are represented the martyrdom of St. 
Blasius and the miracles wrought by his blood which was treasured 
by seven holy women who, in their turn, suffered martyrdom; the 
wise and foolish virgins, quite beautiful and appealing figures; the 
finding of the cross by St. Helena and various acts of her son, 
the Emperor Constantine. In the vaulting are pictured Christ 
and the Virgin enthroned, surrounded by angels, prophets and 
saints. 

Undoubtedly the painting of so many pictures was not all done 
at one time but extended over a period from the beginning to the 
middle of the XIII century. The pictures in the north transept are 
modern, dating from the time of the restoration of the Cathedral 
frescoes in the XIX century. 

There are no church frescoes in the south of Germany equal in 
importance to those in the Rliineland and Saxony. The most im- 
portant early Bavarian frescoes are those which have come to the 
National Museum in Munich from Cloister Rebdorf. They pic- 
ture scenes from the life of Daniel. 

In the chapel of the Castle at Forchheim, near Bamberg, are 
remains of frescoes representing the Annunciation, Adoration of the 
Magi, and Last Judgment, in which the types pictured are not lacking 
in beauty and grace. 

In the crypt of Basel Cathedral are preserved frescoes dating 
from the middle of the XIV century and representing scenes from 
the fives of Christ, the Virgin and St. Margaret. There is no model- 
ling, no body to the figures nor depth to the space; the flesh tones 
are very white, the outlines drawn heavily and washed in thinly with 
colour. 

In Austria, the church on the Nonnenberg, Salzburg, pos- 
sesses frescoes of youthful saints, from the XII century, which, 



26 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART 

like the "Adoration of the Magi" in the Stiftskirche in Lambach, 
present the types familiar to us in Early Christian mosaic art. 
The frescoes in the cloisters of the Cathedral in Brixen, by the 
Master of the Scorpion, Jacob Sunter and others, belong to the 
middle of the XV century and will be spoken of in connection 
with the masters to whom they are attributed. 

The most beautiful frescoes in the South are those in the chapel 
in Gurk, Karnten, painted on a former nuns' choir over the entrance 
wall. The painter has constructed with considerable fineness and 
elaboration an architectural arcade within which is seated the Vir- 
gin holding the Child and surrounded by the Virtues, the Gifts of the 
Holy Ghost, the Prophets and winged Genii. These pictures date 
from about the middle of the XIII century and betray French in- 
fluence in the same degree as the book illuminations of the period. 
The fine oval of the faces, the softness of the ringleted hair, the ten- 
derness of expression, the delicacy of ornament, together with the 
light colouring, lend them an unusual degree of charm. 

In this chapel are, further, scenes from the Old Testament repre- 
senting the Creation of Eve, the Fall of Man, Jacob's Ladder; from 
the New Testament, the Three Kings, the Triumphal Entry into 
Jerusalem, the Transfiguration and Paradise. A frieze introduces 
medallions of saints. The remaining spaces are filled with apostles, 
angels and decorative bands of flowers and leaves. 

A sort of transition from the fresco to the altar-piece is 
marked by the painting of the wooden ceilings of the Roman- 
esque basilicas. Two famous monuments of this kind of painting 
are preserved in Germany, the ceiling of the church in Zillis and 
that of St. Michael's Church in Hildesheim. 

The paintings in Zillis date from the beginning of the XII 
century. The ceiling is divided into one hundred and fifty-three 
square sections, which are enclosed by ornamental bands of leaves. 
The scenes represented in the sections are from the Old and New 
Testaments. 

Much nobler and more beautiful are the paintings on the ceil- 
ing of St. Michael's, Hildesheim, which date from 1186. The 
middle of the ceiling is divided into eight large sections; the back- 
ground is blue. The chief subject is the Genealogical Tree of Christ 



FRESCO-PAIXTIXG 27 

growing out of the sleeping Jesse, below whom are Adam and Eve 
in the act of yielding to temptation and bringing sin into the world. 
Following upon Jesse, in the large sections, are David and three 
other kings, the Virgin Mary and, in the eighth and last section, 
Christ enthroned, bearing a tablet on which is inscribed "Alpha and 
Omega" — "The First and the Last." Other ancestors of Christ 
are presented in the small oblong sections which are set around the 
outside of the main divisions; still others are in the medallions which 
form a sort of frame to the rest of the ceiling. In the lowest of the 
small sections are symbolic representations of the four rivers of 
Paradise and the four cardinal virtues; in the extreme corners of the 
ceiling are the symbols of the four evangelists. The figures possess 
much dignity; their movements are given with unexpected natural- 
ness, their uniform mental attitude is one of great earnestness. 

Of secular frescoes, the most important are to be found in Runk- 
elstein Castle near Botzen, in Tyrol. They were painted in the lat- 
ter half of the XIV century for Xicholas Vintler, whose coat-of-arms 
several times appears in them. Upon entering the court of the pic- 
turesque old castle on an isolated rock in a ravine, sheltered by 
towering mountains, looking down upon a rushing river, there can 
be seen, on the rear wall of a balcony along the second storey, several 
groups of three figures each, consisting of the greatest pagan heroes 
(Hector, Alexander, Caesar); the greatest Jewish heroes (Joshua, 
David, Judas Maccabbeus) ; the greatest Christian kings (Arthur, 
Charlemagne, Godfrey of Bouillon); the noblest knights (Parsifal, 
Gawain, Iwein); the most devoted pairs of lovers (Wilhelm of Aus- 
tria and Aglei, Tristan and Isolde, Wilhelm of Orleans and Amelie); 
the most famous wielders of the sword (Theodoric of Bern with Sachs, 
Sigfrid with Balmung, Ditlib of Steur with Welsung); the strongest 
giants (Asperan, Otnit, Struthan) ; the most powerful women (Hilda, 
Vodelgart, Frau Rachin). These heroic figures are interesting, 
despite the fact that they have suffered from the weather and also 
from restoration. They are all painted above a wainscoting except 
the giants, who, in order to convey the idea of their enormous size, 
are made to reach all the way from the floor. 

Off this balcony opens a room on the walls of which are badly 
damaged frescoes of scenes from Arthur's Court and the Quest of 



28 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART 

the Holy Grail; off this, the "Women's Room" with the story of 
Tristan and Isolde told in minutest detail. Very full of force is the 
figure of Tristan as, in full armour, with plumed helmet, he swings his 
sword to slay the fallen Marold. Of much beauty and grace is that 
of Isolde in the moment of finding the exhausted Tristan, after his 
fight with the dragon; very expressive of the surreptitious, clandes- 
tine nature of their errand the crouching forms of Isolde and Bra- 
gane as, going through the garden to meet Tristan, they pass under 
the very olive tree in which King Mark and Melot are sitting, by no 
means concealed from us. We know that it is night, for in the wild 
and cloudy sky is a new moon. 

The figures are done in green with white fights and stand out 
with fine detachment from the background. Indeed the detach- 
ment is, in some cases, so remarkable, the heads so expressive and 
the garments so skilfully draped, that it seems probable that these 
features developed, in some measure, in the restoration of the pic- 
tures which was undertaken 1506-1508, at the command of the Em- 
peror Maximilian, by Friedrich Lebenbacher and finished by Martin 
Reichlich. 

The Neidhardt Hall gives an interesting picture of the life of the 
lords and ladies of the XIV century. In one picture the men are 
hunting; in another a tournament is in progress; a third reveals a 
group of lords and ladies playing ball in the shade of a grove of con- 
ventionalised trees; in yet another a stately dance is in progress. 
The people all wear the costume of the period. The men are slim and 
elegant in very tight-fitting doublets and hose, with small waist, bell 
sleeves and exceedingly long and pointed shoes. They wear long 
mustaches and pointed beards — indeed the whole effect is exagger- 
atedly gothic. The women are the same height as the men, their 
gowns are cut straight and long, their waists are small, their shoul- 
ders sloping. All have round faces with short chins, high, wide fore- 
heads and red-gold hair. Though all are full of life and display much 
interest in the business in hand, no one is sharply characterised ex- 
cept the stout lady with her hair in two heavy braids, wearing a dark 
red dress and large hat, who is taken direct from life and is a humor- 
ous, almost comic figure. 

The bathroom contains the most valuable remains of the old 



FRESCO-PAINTING 29 

paintings. The walls are painted in a tapestry pattern, with a red 
ground embroidered, as it were, with conventionalised animals and 
birds. At the top is a frieze in two sections. The upper section is 
filled with men and women set in medallions in the attitudes of 
standing, sitting or kneeling. The lower section represents a hall 
with round arches out of each of which a person is advancing to the 
slender painted railing which divides this hall from the pool. All 
the draped figures are attired in the extreme of fashion. Some are 
standing quietly, leaning against the railing; others appear, from 
their gestures, to be engaged in conversation; one is using the 
railing as an athlete would the parallel bars; another is seated on 
it with careless freedom, his back turned toward us. The people 
standing in the arches of the west wall have divested themselves 
of their garments and are ready to step into the bath. A woman 
has one foot already over the railing, but has paused a moment, 
her head in her hand, lost in thought. A very sprightly young 
person, who manifests much pleasure in anticipation of the re- 
freshing bath, is in the act of swinging over the railing. The 
south wall is given over to various animals which disport them- 
selves on the railing. Even in the nude figures there is no at- 
tempt at modelling, but the attitudes are so well observed, the 
situations are presented with such naive humour, and the person- 
alities are so real that we feel that we know these people and 
all their little vanities and foibles, even though they are not 
detached from the background and have no real bodies. 

These frescoes form a most interesting commentary on the 
courtly life of the period; they reflect it as does the poetry; in truth 
they are hardly more than illustrations of the poems with which the 
knights and their ladies were so familiar. 

In the city houses, as well as in the castles, the wealthy patri- 
cians adorned their walls with heroic figures from epic or folk poetry 
and even, occasionally, with pictures illustrative of that industrial 
development which was bringing such great wealth to many of the 
city families. There were, for instance, frescoes in a house in Con- 
stance, of which drawings remain in the Wessenberg collection, 
which, with scenes from the Old Testament, the Latin classics and 
the Tristan saga, included a series from daily life, setting forth the 



30 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART 

process of weaving from the preparing of the flax to the periodical 
baths given to the workers. 

But the amount of fresco-painting in Germany was small in- 
deed in comparison with Italy and the period of its practice short. 
The strong external factor which militated against its continuance 
to any extent through the XIV, XV and XVI centuries is to be 
found in the development of German architecture. The limitations 
this imposed will be best understood by a brief comparison with con- 
ditions in Italy. In Italy, for the telling of secular stories in colour, 
the princes' palaces offered ample, well-lighted walls and ceilings. 
In Germany, there were few such great, sunny palaces; instead the 
houses were in the main built in Gothic style and ceiled with wood, 
while the lighting of these houses in the colder northern country 
would have seemed to an Italian inadequate. 

There was also less wealth in the hands of private individuals 
in Germany than belonged to the princes of church and state in 
Italy. Even when the great Emperor Maximilian wished to set 
forth his life history in the "Triumphal Procession," "White Eang," 
and "Theuerdank," he did it in the cheapest of all mediums, the 
wood cut, and was oftentimes hard pressed to find money to pay his 
artists. 

For the painting of religious pictures the basilica offered to 
the painter large spaces for mural decoration, and was in Italy suc- 
ceeded almost directly by Renaissance buildings which did not de- 
prive him of those spaces. Even those monuments of the Gothic 
style which were erected in Italy were so modified to conform to 
Italian architectural canons that there was still ample opportunity 
for the exercise of the painter's art — as in the Gothic Church of 
St. Francis in Assisi. In Germany, the earliest form of church 
architecture was, of course, as in the south, the basilica. The 
new and individual style, the Romanesque, which developed after 
the year 1000, for a time provided wall space for the exercise of 
the painter's art. For a relatively short time, however. Grad- 
ually the character and endeavour of German architecture became 
vertical; movement upward became the watchword. The height of 
the nave increased in proportion to that of the aisles, towers were 
built and the effect of the whole building was lightened in response 



FRESCO-PAIXTIXG 31 

to this movement toward height. Columns, pillars and other de- 
tails became more slender, and solid walls were broken at short 
intervals by glass windows. These, even in the late Romanesque 
or "Transitional" cathedrals, as Spires, Worms, Mayence, de- 
stroyed the wall space which formerly was a field for decoration, 
leaving only the ceiling and apse to the painter. From this archi- 
tectural style it was but a short step to the Gotliic in which the 
wall spaces were eliminated, their place being taken by glass windows, 
and the ceilings became so pointedly arched, so ribbed and veined, 
that the last space for the monumental fresco-painter was taken from 
him. The fresco was, we might say, superseded by the glass win- 
dow; and it is interesting to note that many of the greatest artists, 
even in the XVI century, furnished designs for these windows. 

A new field was opened to the painter when the altar-piece — 
antependium or superfrontal — came into use in the churches about 
the middle of the XII century. The old custom had been to have 
on the altar nothing but the cross, the candles and possibly a 
reliquary. Then a metal altar-piece was introduced, such as the 
"Golden Altar" now in the Cluny Museum in Paris, which was 
a gift from the Emperor Henry II to Basel Cathedral. In the 
XII century, as there w T as seldom money enough for so costly an 
altar-piece, a wooden one, on which some sacred or symbolic scene 
was painted, was set upon the altar. The earliest of these altar- 
pieces that remains to us is that which was painted about 1180 
for St. Walpurgis' Church in Soest, in Westphalia, and is now in 
Miinster gallery. It is an oblong tablet in one piece and presents, 
on a ground which was originally gold but is now gray, Christ 
enthroned upon a rainbow, his right hand raised in blessing, his 
left holding a book open on his knee. To the left stands the 
Virgin with the symbol of the seven gifts of the Holy Ghost and 
St. Walpurgis with a book; to the right are John the Baptist 
with a lamb and St. Augustine with staff and book. Sixteen small 
concave medallions are set in the frame, in which were originally 
painted sixteen prophets. The standpoint and technique are those 
of the fresco-painter; indeed so closely related are this antepen- 
dium and the frescoes in St. Patroclus' Church, Soest, that they 
are generally attributed to the same master. 



32 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART 

Similar in form to this altar-piece in Miinster is the Rosenheim 
Altar in the National Museum, Munich, the work of a Bavarian 
painter about 1300. The oblong of the panel is broken by an arch 
over the central section, in which is represented the Coronation of 
the Virgin by Christ, with, overhead, two angels bearing a crown. 
On either side are six apostles. The figures are undersized, all in 
motion and gesticulating. The composition possesses a certain 
marked rhythm owing to the disposition of the figures, by means 
of bodily attitudes and gestures, in groups of three, in the same 
manner as the disciples are grouped in Leonardo da Vinci's "Last 
Supper," though, of course, much less perfectly. 

A step in the formal development of the altar-piece is marked 
in the antependium which has been brought to Berlin Gallery, 
from the Wiesenkirche in Soest, for which it was painted between 
1200 and 1230. This antependium is definitely divided into three 
sections. In the central section, which is arched, is the Crucifixion. 
The figure of the Christ is draped in the Byzantine manner, the feet 
are nailed with one nail and supported on a short board. To the 
right of the cross stand the sorrowing women; to the left, a group of 
men whose faces and gestures express great excitement. Above these, 
under the arms of the cross are, on the left, Synagoge, with blind- 
folded eyes, carrying the Tables of the Law; on the right, Ecclesia, 
whom an angel is leading to the cross that she may catch in her 
chalice the blood of Christ. Above the cross are mourning angels, 
pointing with outstretched hands to the Lamb of God. The scenes 
in the sections of the altar-piece to right and left are set in circles 
which recede slightly behind the plane of the central section. In 
the circle on the left section is a representation of Christ before 
Caiaphas, which is full of animation. Among the accusers are two 
men wearing the pointed hat which was the distinctively Jewish 
article of apparel and one man so Roman in type and in garments 
that the figure might have been copied from a statue of Caesar Au- 
gustus. In the circle on the right, are pictured the Marys at the 
Grave, raising their hands in amazement as the angel tells them the 
wonderful news of the Resurrection. The corner spaces left between 
the curve of the circle and the frame are filled with prophets and 
angels. 




8 p 



FRESCO-PAINTING 33 

In the antependium in Berlin Gallery, painted between 1250 
and 1270 by the Master of the Frescoes in St. Nicholas' Church, 
Soest, a further step is noticeable in the development of the altar- 
piece. It is not only divided into three sections like the Wiesen- 
kirche antependium, but these are separated by columns, which stand 
out from the picture and seem to support the round arches above 
them. In the central division is represented the Trinity; in the left- 
hand section the Virgin; in the right, St. John the Evangelist. 

From this well-defined division of the altar-piece into fields, it 
was but a step to the setting on of the side sections by means of 
hinges so that they could be closed over the central section, which 
was frequently used as a shrine. Since the wings were attached 
by means of hinges, there was no reason why the artist should 
stop at one pair; gradually pair after pair were added so that the 
extent of the German altar-piece is amazing to any one familiar 
only with Italian and Flemish diptychs and triptychs. But with 
the adoption of movable wings, it became necessary to lift the 
altar-piece above the altar, since the wings scraped in opening and 
closing. A stationary base or predella was therefore added, which, 
in turn, furnished another field for the painter's art. Sometimes 
the predella itself was made with a thick wooden base and received 
painted wings to protect the paintings or wood-carved figures it 
contained. Thus, gradually, evolved the large German altar-piece 
with its many wings. As a base stood the predella, with or 
without wings, and containing pictures, detached figures carved in 
wood or wooden figures in high relief. The outside of the altar- 
piece proper was usually treated as merely the case and as such 
did not call for the outlay of the painter's greatest skill. Some- 
times it received a group, such as the Annunciation, or Adam and 
Eve, done in colours or simply in grey on grey; sometimes merely 
a decoration of vines and leaves. Corresponding to this, the back 
of the shrine occasionally received a picture also. In some altars 
a pair of stationary wings formed an extension of the altar case 
and a sort of balance in width to its thickness. When the doors 
were opened, there came to view the long expanse of pictures 
covering the inside of the outer wings and the outside of the 
next pair. The wings sometimes received one picture each, some- 



34 



GERMAN MASTERS OF ART 



times — very commonly in the earlier altars — they were divided into 
any number of sections, each containing a small picture. When 
the last pair of wings was opened, as was done on High Days and 
Holy Days only, there stood disclosed the shrine section, the largest 
and most beautiful picture of all, the key note of the altar. Fre- 
quently this picture was not a painting, but was composed, in 
whole or in part, of painted figures carved in wood, detached or 
in very high relief. 

Thus with the evolution of the altar-piece a new and important 
field was opened to the painter — and to the wood carver as well — 
which offered larger and larger opportunity as the altar-piece in- 
creased in size. 






CHAPTER IV 

THE SCHOOL OF PRAGUE, THE EARLIEST SCHOOL OF 

ART IN GERMANY 

TOMMASO DA MODENA— NICHOLAS WtRMSER— THEODORIC 
OF PRAGUE— MASTER OF WITTINGAL 

THE earliest school of painting in Germany was founded in 
Prague by Karl IV who, as we have seen, upon becoming King of 
Bohemia in 1333 set about making his capital city a great art 
centre, gave commissions to book illuminators, erected many build- 
ings and invited painters to decorate his churches and castles. Im- 
mediately after his election as Emperor, he began to build the castle of 
Karlstein in the depths of the forest, high over the river Beraun, as a 
safe treasure house for the crown jewels. Three chapels were built 
within the fortress, the Chapels of St. Mary the Virgin, St. Cather- 
ine and the Holy Cross, and painters were summoned to adorn them 
with frescoes. Among these there was at least one Italian, Tommaso 
da Modena, who is mentioned as working in Prague in 1357. The 
names of two other artists are known; Nicholas Wurmser, from the 
Rhine country, and Theodoric — or Dietrich — of Prague. Nicholas 
Wurmser was a sufficiently distinguished painter to receive from the 
Emperor in 1360 a grant of exemption from taxation on his estate 
in Morin, a privilege extended in 1367 to his colleague, Theodoric of 
Prague, in a document which made mention of "the beautiful and 
impressive paintings with which he had adorned the royal chapel 
in Karlstein." 

Tommaso da Modena was probably of the school of Giotto, as 
his work betrays marked Florentine characteristics. His signed altar 
in Vienna Gallery shows, on a gold background, the Virgin of Giot- 
tesque type, the drapery extending to cover her hair, holding the 
partially draped Christ Child and a little dog with which he is 
playing. In the smaller panels on either side are Saints Wenceslas 
and Palmatius. In the Chapel of St. Mary the Virgin in Karlstein 
Castle is a series of scenes from the Apocalypse which have been at- 

35 



36 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART 

tributed by some authorities to this master, by others to the German, 
Nicholas Wurmser. These frescoes are in a poor state of preserva- 
tion, but some details, as the angels blowing trumpets, who face 
directly toward the spectator, show a remarkable command of 
perspective and foreshortening. The sentiment and the types, as 
that of the Woman of the Apocalypse, are German rather than 
Italian, so that the attribution to Nicholas Wurmser would seem the 
more reasonable. 

To Theodoric of Prague are attributed the frescoes in the Holy 
Cross Chapel, which was dedicated in 1365. The tops of the deep 
window niches are adorned with scenes from the childhood of Christ 
and the Revelation to St. John. The walls are decorated with one 
hundred and thirty-three frescoes in two and three rows, one above 
the other, presenting, in heroic size, half-length figures of apostles, 
popes, monks, princes and saints. The picture over the altar con- 
tains the Crucifixion, the Virgin and St. John, and, as predella, 
the Resurrection. The figures of the Crucified, St. Augustine 
and St. Ambrose have been broken out and taken to the Imperial 
Gallery in Vienna. 

The types in this chapel are broad-shouldered and strong, with 
large heads and earnest, even dramatically intense, expressions. 
That the artist was a close observer of nature is evident in the 
wrinkled foreheads, the broad, thick noses, the prominent cheek 
bones, the hands with their sharply marked knuckles, veins and 
sinews. The Crucifixion is unusually realistic for this period, the 
Christ presenting an appearance of great physical suffering. The 
garments are simply draped, in full folds; the colours are quite 
light. 

To this same master, Theodoric, is attributed an altar in the 
Rudolphinum in Prague, which presents the Virgin with the Christ 
Child, Saints Wenzel and Sigismund, four other Bohemian Saints 
and the donor, Archbishop Ocko of Wlaschim. The persons in- 
troduced are not so strongly characterised as those in Karlstein 
Castle. 

Necessarily, the attribution of the Karlstein frescoes is in- 
definite. None of the pictures is signed — except Tommaso's altar- 
piece in Vienna — and there is no documentary evidence as to what 




Photograph by Dr. Stoedlner, Berlin 

THEODORIC OF PRAGUE 

Virgin and Child with Saints and Archbishop Ocko of Wlaschim 

imperial gallery, vienna 



THE SCHOOL OF PRAGUE 37 

part of the work was done by any given artist. In general, it may 
be said that the pictures in the Florentine manner, similar to the 
Vienna picture, are assigned to Tommaso da Modena; those in which 
the types and sentiment correspond more nearly with the Schools of 
the Rhine are attributed to the German, Nicholas Wurmser; while 
those presenting strong, broad-shouldered, rather Slavonic types in 
a manner true to life and astonishingly free from the hamperings of 
art traditions are believed to be the work of the Bohemian, 
Theodoric. 

But these three were by no means the only artists attracted to 
Prague by the liberal commissions of the art-loving Emperor. Many 
works by painters who are still nameless are scattered through the 
Bohemian churches. So, in Prague, the hand of a fourth artist is 
recognised in the Crucifixion in the Chapel of St. Mary the Virgin. 
A fifth painted the altar given by Reinhart of Prague to the church in 
Muhlhausen-on-Neckar in 1385, which presents Saints Vitus, 
Wenzel and Sigismund. Still another painted in the Emmaus 
Cloister in Prague, which was dedicated in 1372, a series of scenes 
from the Old and New Testaments, which are markedly Italian in 
character, showing much of the delicacy and fondness for ornament 
characteristic of the School of Siena. 

By a painter whom Henry Thode has named the "Master of 
Wittingau"* because his altar in the Rudolphinum, Prague, came 
from the little Bohemian town of Wittingau, are several works of 
especial interest not only in themselves but because they exercised a 
direct and unmistakable influence on Master Berthold Landauer, the 
first of the great painters of Nuremberg. 

The Wittingau Altar is now in three sections, two of which repre- 
sent Christ in Gethsemane, and the Resurrection, with, on the back, 
figures of saints; the third section contains the scene of the Crucifixion. 
The colouring is warm, the people, especially the women, possess 
considerable beauty and charm, the scenes and figures are full of 
life. 

A most interesting work by this Master of Wittingau is the 
"Virgin and Child" in the church in Hohenfurt, Bohemia. The 
Madonna, who is presented standing, in three-quarter length, has an 

* Henry Thode, "Malerschule von Numberg." 



38 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART 

extremely high forehead, above which is set a large, jewelled crown 
from the back of which is draped a fringed veil. Her fair, wavy hair 
is worn low so that her ears are almost hidden. The face is broad, the 
chin short, the mouth beautifully curved, the eyes large, prominent 
and heavy-lidded. In spite of the narrow, sloping shoulders, her 
whole personality expresses calm strength and motherly capability 
and beneficence. 

Perhaps the most widely known of the works attributed to this 
artist is the Pahler Altar, which came to the National Museum, 
Munich, from Castle Pahl near Weilheim. The central picture 
represents the Crucifixion; on the wings are St. John the Baptist, 
St. Barbara, Christ the Man of Sorrows, and the Virgin and Child. 
In types and treatment this altar resembles that from Wittingau and 
would seem to be a direct antecedent of Master Berthold's Deichsler 
Altar in Berlin Gallery. The form and features of the Christ are 
of extreme refinement; the indications of suffering are restrained. 
The flesh is done with great softness and is very light, indeed quite 
pink and white in tone. The colour scheme is simple but harmonious. 
St. John wears a red robe lined with blue; the Virgin, blue lined with 
red, with a white head-dress; St. Barbara brown; St. John brownish 
green, and he carries a red book. The saints are all very tall with a 
combined dignity and sweetness of bearing which makes them ideal 
saints, apart, aloof from sinful men in purity and sanctity, yet tender 
and pitiful in their understanding of human frailty. 

But brilliant as was this early art period in Prague, it had short 
continuance on its own soil. Even during the reign of Karl IV's 
successor, King Wenzel, it began to decline and after the outbreak of 
the Hussite wars, which kept Bohemia so long in turmoil, its activity 
ceased. The School of Prague, indeed, accomplished its greatest 
work in the impetus it gave to the early development of the greatest 
of all the schools of art in Germany, the School of Nuremberg. 



PART II 
SCHOOL OF COLOGNE 



CHAPTER V 
HAMBURG 

MASTER BERTRAM VAN BYRDE 

IN the Hanseatic city of Hamburg art developed early and was 
marked by distinct originality uninfluenced to any extent by 

the art of any foreign country or of the other German schools. 
The discovery of the existence of a large body of work by its early 
masters has been made within the last ten years and has awakened 
the greatest interest everywhere, and especially in Hamburg itself. 
Churches, individuals and other galleries have most generously aided 
in building up what has become a truly notable collection, for the 
accommodation of which a whole wing of the Kunsthalle has been set 
apart. Each artist has been given a room to himself, whenever the 
body of his work at all warrants it, and the rooms have been ar- 
ranged in chronological order, so that the development of Hamburg 
art is set forth in sequence from the XIV to the XIX centuries. 

The most recently discovered artist, Bertram van Byrde, who is 
also the earliest, was active in the closing years of the XIV and 
opening years of the XV century. Of his works there are in the Kunst- 
halle the Harvestehude Altar, which contains four scenes from the 
Life of the Virgin; the Buxtehude Altar, which presents in great detail, 
in eighteen scenes, the story of the Virgin's life, from her father 
Joachim's Sacrifice to her Death and Coronation; and the large 
Grabow Altar which contains twenty-four painted pictures and eighty 
figures carved in wood and painted. Besides these, there is a 
fourth large altar of Master Bertram's in South Kensington Museum, 
London, which presents, in fifty-seven pictures, scenes from the Life 
of the Virgin, the Life of St. Mary of Egypt and the Apocalypse. 

The Grabow altar, so called because it was for many years in 
the church in Grabow, is of special interest as it was the first to be 
identified as the work of Master Bertram and led to further ac- 
quaintance with the master and to the recognition of other works from 
his hand. In the year 1900 ancient documents were discovered which 

41 



42 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART 

revealed that this altar-piece in Grabow had been the old High 
Altar in St. Peter's Church, Hamburg, painted by Master Bertram 
in 1397; that St. Peter's, having erected a new, up-to-date altar 
in 1722, had, in 1731, when a devastating fire swept the village 
of Grabow, presented it to the church there. Now on the altar- 
piece as it stood in Grabow the representations from the Old 
Testament were found to begin with the Fourth Day of Creation; 
it must therefore be concluded that the pictures of the first three 
days had been lost. It was recalled that Lappenberg, in his notes 
on early art in Hamburg, related that the picture of the Resur- 
rection in the Jacobikirche which ^Egidius Coignet had painted 
in Hamburg in 1593, when a fugitive from Antwerp in conse- 
quence of the religious unrest in the Netherlands, was painted 
on top of an older picture with gold background, of which there 
was still discernible, through the Coignet, the sun, the moon and 
the outlines of a human form. After much searching the Coignet 
picture, which had been lost sight of for years, was discovered 
and the measurements were found to be the same as those of the 
panels of the Grabow altar. As the Coignet picture was of little 
artistic value, it was decided to clean it off, whereupon there came to 
light the missing Days of Creation and three other scenes from the 
Old Testament which were painted below them and filled out the six 
sections into which the panel was divided. The discovery of this 
wing incited to a search for a corresponding which must have origi- 
nally balanced it on the altar-piece. In all probability they had both 
become loose while the altar was still in St. Peter's Church and this 
wing had, at Coignet's request, been given to him as a fragment of 
little value to the church but a fine board for a painter. But since 
he had obtained one wing, it might naturally be inferred that he had 
also painted over the other one missing from Bertram's altar. In 
St. Peter's Church were two more Coignet pictures, the "Last Supper" 
and the "Descent of the Holy Ghost," which, with other pictures, had 
been saved from the terrible fire in 1842 by the artists Otto Speckter 
and the Genslers at the risk of their lives. They were examined 
and it was discovered that the "Descent of the Holy Ghost" was 
painted on wood and possessed the same dimensions as Master 
Bertram's panels. The insignificant Coignet was cleaned off and the 



BERTRAM VAN BYRDE 43 

Grabow altar stood complete with eighteen scenes from the Old Testa- 
ment, six scenes from the New "Testament and eighty carved figures. 
The Old Testament scenes represent: — the First Five Days of Crea- 
tion, the Creation of Adam and of Eve, the Warning not to touch the 
Forbidden Fruit, the Fall, the Discovery, the Expulsion from Eden, 
Adam and Eve at Work, the Sacrifices of Cain and Abel, Abel's 
Murder, Building the Ark (damaged), Sacrifice of Isaac, Jacob and 
Esau, Jacob receiving the Blessing. Those from the New Testament 
include the Annunciation, Nativity, Adoration of the Kings, Pres- 
entation in the Temple, Massacre of the Innocents and Rest on 
the Flight into Egypt. The central group in the wood carvings 
represents the Crucified with Man," and John; on the wings are the 
thirteen apostles (including St. Paul), ten prophets (some few 
restored), twelve female saints, six male saints, three Magi and, in 
half length, the five wise and five foolish virgins, the latter with their 
empty lamps held upside down. On the predella, the Annuncia- 
tion is the central representation; on either side, seated under 
Gothic arches and separated from one another by columns, are 
five saints, including, on the right of the Virgin, Origen, Am- 
brose, Augustine, Jerome and Gregory; on the left, John the Bap- 
tist, Denis, Chrysostom, Bernhard and Benedict. 

All our information about the life and personality of Master 
Bertram has been gained from his two wills, the one made in 1390, 
the second in 1410. The master gives as his reason for making the 
testament of 1390: "I purpose to make a pilgrimage to Rome for 
my soul's comfort." The will reveals the fact that he had a wife, 
Greta, and a weak-minded brother, Cord; to these two most of his 
possessions are bequeathed, though all the Hamburg churches are 
remembered. In the second will, made in 1410, no mention is made 
of his wife, who must therefore have died before it was drawn, but a 
daughter, Geseke or Gesa, is provided for, also that same brother 
Cord, who had married in the meantime and had a young daughter, 
Meta. The family name is mentioned for the first time in the refer- 
ence to his brother, who is called Cord van Byrde. Among the 
religious foundations not mentioned in the former testament which 
receive bequests in this will, are the cloisters of Harvestehude and 
Buxtehude. Bertram must, therefore, have painted the altars for 



44 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART 

these nunneries between 1390 and 1410, after his return from Rome. 
Harvestehude is mentioned first and is to receive one mark; Bert- 
ram's altar for this cloister was small. Buxtehude, which had 
given him a much larger commission, is to receive two marks. 
Harvestehude is mentioned first and it is probable that its altar was 
painted first. The carvings in the shrine would lead to the belief 
that it was conceived directly after the Roman visit. The Virgin 
is half reclining, supported by cushions on a draped couch, her 
attitude and the treatment of the drapery recalling sculptured 
figures of Roman matrons. The manger is in the form of an 
altar, with the heads of the ox and the ass looking over the top. 
As the Grabow altar of 1397 is much more advanced in natural- 
ism than the Harvestehude altar, although painted so many 
years earlier, it would seem as if the Roman visit had inclined 
the artist toward the archaic and traditional forms. This influ- 
ence did not last long, however, for the Buxtehude altar shows 
an even closer observation of nature than the Grabow altar. 

Master Bertram is peculiarly interesting because of the freshness 
of his conceptions, the sincerity of his motives, and the originality 
with which he strives, apparently without the help or influence of 
any other art, to solve the various problems which arise in the 
course of his story telling. He is above all a story teller, who 
delights in setting forth in minutest detail, affectionately, some- 
times sentimentally, all the happenings in the lives of his saints. 
While most of his people are sacred and must, therefore, be presented 
as remote and detached from worldly interests, their accessories 
are given with such intimacy as to make us sharers in the Ger- 
man home life of the period. 

That Bertram's early training had probably been in miniature 
painting, or by a master who was an illuminator, is suggested by the 
pictures of the first five days of creation, which are, so far as I know, 
represented on no other German altar-piece, though very general sub- 
jects in book illumination. The "First Day" shows God the Father, 
as a youthful looking man, with long brown hair and beard, with 
raised right hand and parted lips, calling into being a round, green 
ball — the earth — which floats before Him in space. Above, in the 
heavens, painted red on red, in a round cluster of conventional- 



BERTRAM VAN BYRDE 45 

ised clouds like a burst of flame, is the countenance of Christ — 
"In the beginning was the Word" — closely resembling that of 
God the Father, but with an intensity of expression which is 
almost startling. From behind him ape-like devils are falling; 
one wears a gold crown; some have half disappeared from view 
into the earth in whose centre they are to find their hell. 

The "Second Day" shows God the Father, this time with solid 
ground beneath his feet, calling into being the circle of the heavens 
which frames the head of Christ. 

In the "Third Day" appear, in conventionalised clouds, the 
golden sun and silver moon with human faces, and some stars. 

The creation of the plant world, in the "Fourth Day," presents 
the earliest landscape in northern art. The ground is quite thickly 
sown with flowers and herbs; on a stereotyped, rocky hill to the 
left rises a forest. The trees, to be sure, are all out of propor- 
tion, for although they are on a little hill they are not quite so 
tall as the human figure of God the Father standing on lower 
ground beside them. But the light and shade on the trees, the 
shining distinctness of the individual leaves in the light, the heavy 
masses of darkness in the shadows and especially the spirally twisted 
trunk of the tree that stands alone on the edge of the forest and has 
had to do hard battle with the winds, all show remarkably close 
observation of nature. 

In the "Fifth Day" the newly created animals present a scene of 
much animation. The white rabbit is suckling her young, the wolf 
has the lamb by the throat so that the blood is spurting forth, the 
bear is attacking the horse — a strange little hobby horse, who with 
wide open mouth is squealing with pain. 

Not until the Creation of Man do the angels take any interest 
in the progress of events; then, as the youthful-looking, beardless, 
curly-haired Adam emerges from the earth, the angels swing censers 
in the sky above. The Creation of Eve they greet with the music of 
stringed instruments. 

Then follows a most unusual, perhaps unique, picture of God the 
Father admonishing Adam and Eve not to eat of the Tree of Knowl- 
edge. Adam and Eve are standing in the Garden near a large and 
elaborate Romanesque gateway, to the right of which is a Gothic 



46 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART 

tower just like the one at the Burgthor in Lubeck. This tower is 
balanced on the opposite side of the composition by the standing 
figure of God the Father, who from the outside looks over the wall 
to the left of the gateway. Directly in front of him, but inside the 
wall, is the tree at which he points with his right hand; his left hand 
is raised in a gesture of warning, his lips are parted in speech. Adam, 
now grown a bearded man, points questioningly at .the tree, as if he 
would make quite sure of the instructions; Eve's right hand is lifted, 
palm outward, in a movement of protest — she would not think of 
touching that fruit! The figures are still out of proportion to their 
surroundings, the great gateways and the trees are hardly taller than 
the people. But the sense of space is remarkable in the impression 
given of very considerable distance from the foreground to the thresh- 
old of the gate. The treatment of the light is astonishing for this 
early date. It falls diagonally across the third of the garden in 
the foreground, lighting the flower pots, the small tree to the left 
and the figures of Adam and Eve. The trees near the wall are 
in the heavy shadow which is also cast over the ground beyond 
the standing figures. A further detail of lighting is brought out 
in the shadows inside the little towers and flower pots, — a treat- 
ment which is to be noted especially in another picture of this 
altar, the "Building of Noah's Ark," in which the inside of the 
boat is in deep shadow, as is also the inside of the drinking cup 
from which a workman is about to refresh himself. Well observed 
is the light falling through the window near the ground, in the 
tower, but leaving the left wall in shadow. 

Master Bertram's types as they are presented in this "Warning" 
persist with a remarkable degree of faithfulness through all his works. 
Surprising is the conception of the eternal youthfulness of God the 
Father. The form under the long, scant mantle is flat and without 
modelling, the head is large, the face rather expressionless; the lips are 
always parted in speech. The Virgin has a rather long face, with a 
high forehead, straight nose, short chin, small mouth, large blue 
(sometimes brown) eyes, and long, fair hair which hangs, in a 
fashion peculiar to pictures of the Hamburg School, in sepa- 
rate strands which yet are not ringlets. Joseph is pictured as 
an old man of Semitic type, with white hair and beard. The 




Reproduced from Director Lichticark's "Mauler Bertram" 

BERTRAM VAN BYRDE 

God the Father Warns Adam and Eve not to Touch the Forbidden Fruit 
kunsthalle, hamburg 




Courtesy o} the Kunsthalle 



BERTRAM VAN BYRDE 

The Angels' Visit 
kunsthalle, hamburg 



BERTRAM VAN BYRDE 47 

figures, for the most part, are short though not too thick-set; 
the hands are very large and long, the feet exceedingly square, 
the heads too large for the bodies. The artist does not always 
succeed in controlling the glance of his subjects; in the earlier 
pictures they seldom look where they might naturally be ex- 
pected to look. The types are all marked by refinement; they 
are never common or coarse. 

Only occasionally do we feel that Master Bertram's people are 
portrayed direct from life; as the young man in the "Building of 
Noah's Ark," and, in the Buxtehude altar, the nurse, the lovely 
young girl who is helping her, and the handsomely dressed young 
woman who is attendant upon Anna in the "Birth of the Virgin;" 
the old shepherd in the "Annunciation to the Shepherds;" some of 
the lawyers in "Christ and the Doctors of the Law;" the fashionable 
bride and smooth-faced bridegroom in the "Marriage at Cana." 
In "Jacob and Esau" and the "Blessing of Jacob," in the Grabow 
altar, the head of Isaac is markedly Semitic in type. His blindness 
is well realised; he has not just closed his eyes for a moment to open 
them again at will. That the aged man is also toothless is permitted 
to be very evident through his parted lips as he bestows his 
blessing upon his younger son. But none of the figures in the 
paintings reveal such close observation and faithful recording of 
life as the carved Mary Magdalen on the inside of the inner 
wings. The singularly full lower eyelids, the lips curving up- 
ward at the corners, the short, broad nose and round chin all 
belonged to a definite person of Bertram's acquaintance, whose 
portrait he carved in the very hood he saw her wearing daily. In- 
deed almost all the statuettes are individualised to a greater degree 
than the paintings and such figures as those of Saints Bernhard and 
Origen are astonishingly lifelike. 

The human form is presented with more skill than we have, 
perhaps, any right to expect. In the nude figures of Adam and 
Eve, the shoulder blades, knees, ribs, muscles and sinews are 
distinctly indicated and brought out by high lights. The flesh 
tone is darker in the body of the man than in that of the 
woman. The movement in the "Discovery" and the "Expulsion" 
is unexpectedly good and Eve pointing to the serpent possesses 



48 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART 

in person and movement a very considerable degree of beauty. 
Few opportunities presented themselves to Master Bertram for 
the delineation of the nude, outside of these scenes with Adam 
and Eve. The Christ Child is usually fully robed, though not so 
in the "Adoration of the Magi," in the Grabow and Buxtehude 
altars or in the "Circumcision" in the Buxtehude altar. He 
is exceedingly small in nearly all representations, being hardly 
larger than a doll in the Grabow "Presentation." The nude form of 
St. Mary of Egypt is presented with remarkable skill and rounded 
detachment from the background in the London altar, in the three 
scenes picturing her fed by angels, receiving the Sacrament, and 
lying dead in the forest while two angels swing censers above 
her and others carry her soul aloft to the music of instruments. 
In the carved section, the form of Christ on the Cross, though 
given without regard to anatomical construction, is of much 
beauty and refinement. 

The draped figures in the pictures do not wear garments of as 
varied fashions as do those in the carved section of the altar. The 
Virgin is given the traditional robes, with a most decorative halo; 
sometimes she wears a crown, sometimes her mantle is drawn over 
her head. The heavy strands of her hair are always allowed to fall 
softly about her face. Joseph wears a distinctive cap and carries 
a carved pilgrim's staff and pilgrim's flask. In the " Murder of Abel," 
Cain, the worldling, affects a small waist, bell sleeves and excessively 
long and pointed shoes. The bride in the "Marriage at Cana" 
wears an exceedingly modish bonnet. In the extreme of fashion is 
the young woman offering refreshment to Anna in the Buxtehude 
"Birth of the Virgin." Her brocaded, tight-fitting gown with bell 
sleeves, is cut low over the shoulders, on her head she wears a dainty 
little round cap, held by a strap under the chin in the same manner as 
an English soldier's. 

All Master Bertram's altars are painted on a gold ground, though 
in some cases almost none of it shows, as it is quite filled with archi- 
tectural or landscape features. But little of it appears in the "Warn- 
ing" of the Grabow altar, where the great gate usurps almost all 
the background. In the "Blessing of Jacob" none of it is seen 
except faint lines through the narrow Gothic windows of the 



BERTRAM VAN BYRDE 49 

baldachin-like room. In the Buxtehude "Birth of the Virgin" 
the house wall furnishes all but a narrow strip of the back- 
ground. The interior of the house into which the artist would 
have us look, is indeed little more than background, for he has 
not been able to bring the roof over it and the people inside it 
convincingly. He lets us see the red tiling of the roof and the smoke 
coming out of the kitchen chimney as if we were above it all, whereas 
he really wishes us to stand on its threshold and see Anna, on the bed, 
which is made up on a braided rug, taking the nourishment offered 
to her by a young woman of extreme elegance; the nurse by the fire 
about to pour the warm water of her first bath over the new-born 
Mary; the charming young girl who helps the nurse, holding the 
towel in readiness; Joseph half visible in the semi-darkness of the 
kitchen beyond; the seat against the red wall; the cat watching 
proceedings with waving tail, and many other homely, intimate 
details of daily life as he knew it. 

In the "Annunciation" of the Buxtehude altar a panel of gold 
background is all that is left unoccupied by the room in which the 
Virgin is kneeling, reading by the light from a window in the right 
wall, while through an opening in the left wall the angel delivers his 
message. Part of the angel's body and wings are, as it were, sil- 
houetted against the single strip of gold which is left unfilled. In the 
Buxtehude "Joachim among the Shepherds" and the "Annunciation 
to the Shepherds" a third of the background is taken up by a forest 
landscape in which sheep are grazing, rams butting one another, and 
a young lamb is feeding, all of which scenes are given with perfect 
naturalness. The "Annunciation to the Shepherds" possesses 
unusual interest, as the representation is of extreme rarity except in 
the background of pictures of the Holy Night A very small patch of 
gold sky is all that is visible of the gold background in the unique 
picture of the "Visitation of the Angels" on the Buxtehude altar, 
which is the only representation of this legend I know in art. The 
actual background is, on the left, a shady group of trees, on the 
right, a tiny room of which three sides are given and in which the 
Virgin sits knitting the seamless vesture which grew with the Child 
and for which lots were cast at the foot of the cross. Beside her on 
the seat is a basket in which her yarn is kept. The Christ Child, 



50 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART 

in a straight, scant dress, is lying on the ground beside her. He has 
tired of playing with his top, which lies there neglected, and is reading 
in a book. Suddenly, from the left have appeared two sweet, serious, 
tall angels with peacock-coloured wings, one of them carrying the cross 
and the nails, the other the spear and the crown of thorns. The Child 
has turned his head quickly to look back and up at them as they stand 
behind him, yet has not turned his body or dropped the hand on 
which his cheek has been resting — a most curious and interesting 
movement. The whole atmosphere of this rare scene is that of a 
dream, a vision, though so intimate and tender. Something of the 
poetic quality is contributed by the cool, shady grove of trees which 
furnishes the suitable and sympathetic background for the scene. 

It is remarkable, for this period, to find the landscape playing an 
important part in so many of Master Bertram's pictures. Unusual, 
too, and wholly German, is the evident joy with which he introduces 
animals into his pictures. Besides the animals in the "Fifth Day of 
Creation" — the earliest picture of animals in northern art — we have 
already noticed the sheep, the butting rams, the sucking lamb in the 
"Joachim among the Shepherds" of the Buxtehude altar. In the 
"Angels and Shepherds" there are, besides the sheep, a shaggy 
Abyssinian ram in the foreground, a dog stealing food from a bag, 
a wolf, a fox, and startled birds in the tree-tops. In the "Birth of the 
Virgin " the cat adds the last touch of domesticity. In the " Nativity," 
while an angel who has dropped on the thatched roof of the shed 
swings a censer over the holy pair and another who has shyly pushed 
the outer door half open is peeping in with one eye and vigorously 
swinging a second censer, a small pig has joined the company of 
the ox and ass and goes rooting about the manger, and along the 
rafters of the stable a cat walks stealthily. That at some later period 
the cat and the little pig had not been considered fitting in a sacred 
picture is evident from the fact that they had been painted out 
and only came to light in the recent cleaning. 

Master Bertram's colouring is very lovely. He frequently 
gains lustre and glow for his solid colours by the device of enlivening 
them with fine dots, points or cross lines of gold. They are har- 
monised, usually, by being toned to some predominant or central 
colour, the favourite being grey. Sometimes this grey is given 




nsthallt 



l\ 



■Jt*9* 


1 






mu 
















M^ 

























BERTRAM VAN BYRDE 
The Nativity 

kunsthalle, hamburg 




Photograph by J oh. Nohring, Lubeck 

MASTER FRANCKE 

Angels Supporting the Dead Christ 

kunsthalle, hamburg 



BERTRAM VAN BYRDE 51 

in the architecture, sometimes in a detail, as in the "Flight into 
Egypt," where the grey of the donkey gives the keynote to which the 
colouring of the whole picture is attuned. 

A comprehensive glance over Master Bertram's work reveals 
him as a story-teller of much charm, who prefers to picture the 
gentler, more pleasing aspects of life, to linger with sweet sentiment 
over the intimate details of family and home, to make known to us 
kindly men and gracious, tender women, to beautify and enliven his 
scenes with trees and flowers and animals which all call out his love. 
He is seldom dramatic, though not utterly without the power to be 
so, as is shown by his two representations of the Massacre of the 
Innocents. This dramatic quality he does not, however, introduce 
in his carved Crucifixion, which is marked by a high, calm serenity. 
The noble figure of the Christ is not that of an agonizing Man of 
Sorrows, but is the symbol of "Christ lifted up." 

So through almost all his pictures peace and beauty and charm 
breathe like the incense and the music with which his angels fill 
them. They are not so mystic in spirit and atmosphere as those 
of the early Cologne masters, although the Grabow altar was evi- 
dently designed for a patron who held the tenets of the Mystic faith 
or philosophy, since Origen is one of the saints on the predella — 
Origen who was an arch-heretic in the eyes of all but Mystics. St. 
Denis and St. Bernhard, also favourites with the Mystics, are included, 
while St. Francis is left out. The inscriptions on the scrolls held by 
the saints — which were discovered only at the time of the recent 
cleaning — express dogmas of Mystic Philosophy, as St. Denis' "The 
true God is not demonstrable among the gods." But though the 
pictures are mystic in intent and content, Master Bertram in- 
troduces so many details of familiar, every-day life and makes 
his people so closely akin to us in their actions, interests and 
emotions that they seem not remote or worshipful but humanly 
near and dear. 



CHAPTER VI 

HAMBURG 

MASTER FRANCKE— HEINRICH FUNHOF— ABSALOM STUMME— 
HEINRICH BORNEMAN 

FROM Master Bertram van Byrde, greatest of the painters of 
the XIV century in Hamburg, Master Francke may have 
learned the elementary technique of his art. The indications 
of his influence are, however, exceedingly slight. Francke differs 
from him decidedly in types, colouring and sentiment. Indeed there 
seems to have been no external influence which noticeably affected 
Master Francke; he is highly individual and seldom reminiscent 
of any other school or master, though his delicate, nervous, aris- 
tocratic types with the veining and musculature so carefully 
marked, reveal the possession of the same ideals as the Italian 
Crivelli. 

When, in the early years of the new enthusiasm over Hamburg 
art, Alfred Lichtwark was making a search for old paintings by 
Hamburg masters, he found, in the badly lighted choir of St. Peter's 
Church, a most remarkable picture from the first half of the XV 
century, which had been overlooked by all previous seekers, probably 
because they did not dream of finding an old picture in so new a 
church. This "Man of Sorrows" was found to be one of the pictures 
that had been saved by the artists Otto Speckter and the Genslers 
from the fire which destroyed the old St. Peter's Church, and had 
been restored by them to the new church. The picture presents, 
against a brocaded background, the thorn-crowned Christ in life 
size — which is in itself an astonishing and interesting fact, as it 
is the first representation of a figure in life size known in north- 
ern art. Light rays, instead of a solid halo, form an aureole 
about his head. One wounded hand with fingers held far apart 
and stiffly curving, points to his bleeding side; the other is so 
held that we may see the palm and the blood which streams from 
the wound. A white mantle with a lining of cool, dull red falls 
from his shoulders and is held up by three angels in blue. Across 

52 



MASTER FRANCKE 53 

the lower section of the picture a curtain of glowing red brocade 
is held by two angels who bear an Easter lily and a flaming 
sword. The type of Christ is highly individual; the forehead wide 
and low, the nose straight and fine, the lower part of the face 
and the chin extremely narrow and pointed, the mouth drooping 
at the corners, the eyes hardly more than half open and drooping 
in lines parallel with the lines of the lips, the eyebrows raised 
high as if in patient endurance. The hair falls just to the shoul- 
ders in heavy, separate strands which yet are not ringlets — a 
treatment similar to that to which we are accustomed in Master 
Bertram's pictures. 

On a chance visit to Hamburg shortly after the discovery of this 
picture Friedrich Schlie saw it and at once affirmed that in Leipsic 
there was another "Man of Sorrows" and in Schwerin Museum a 
series of nine pictures by the same master. The pictures in Schwerin 
were found, upon investigation, to have gone there from St. John's 
Church, Hamburg, where they formed part of the altar in the Chapel 
belonging to the English Trading Company or Englandsfahrer- 
Gesellschaft. The original altar contained, on the shrine, the Cruci- 
fixion, of which only the group of sorrowing women remains, and of 
which there is a copy in Copenhagen Museum. From the inner sides 
of the inner wings there remain four scenes from the Passion; on the 
left, "The Scourging" and "Bearing the Cross," leading up, as it 
were, to "The Crucifixion" on the shrine; on the right, after "The 
Crucifixion," "The Entombment" and "The Resurrection." When 
only the outer wings were opened, there were revealed four scenes 
from the Life of the Virgin, of which only "The Nativity" and "The 
Adoration of the Kings" are left; and four scenes from the life of 
the patron saint of the Company, St. Thomas a, Becket, of which 
only "The Flight" and "The Assassination" remain. 

Arrangements were presently concluded for the transfer of 
these nine pictures from Schwerin to the already notable collection of 
works by Hamburg Masters in the Kunsthalle. No hope of ever 
finding the name of the artist was entertained, for the records of the 
English Trading Company had all been destroyed; but suddenly, 
in an old manuscript which referred to the said loss of the Company's 
documents, the fact was noted that the Company had ordered this 



54 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART 

altar in 1424 from the artist Master Francke and had paid for it 
about one hundred Lubeck marks. Nothing further has been 
learned about his life or personality. The eleven known pictures 
acquaint us, however, with his individuality as an artist. 

Of the two representations of the Man of Sorrows, the one in 
Leipsic is an early work, the one in Hamburg the latest and most 
mature work of the master. The figure in each of them is given in 
three-quarters length and life size, but in the Leipsic picture the body 
is more slender and shapeless than in the Hamburg picture and the 
arms are very thin and lacking in modelling, while in the later work 
they are fully developed, with elbows and forearms clearly defined. 
The face in the Leipsic picture is more painfully drawn and the 
corners of the lips and eyes are pulled down almost diagonally; 
in the one in Hamburg they droop in a manner to appeal to 
our tenderest sympathy, but not so excessively as to mar the 
beauty of the face. In both of them the Christ type reveals 
a delicate organisation, highly strung, nervous and sensitive. 
While the colouring in both is lovely enough to attract attention, 
that in the Hamburg picture is of rare beauty and harmony. 
The fine sense of values shown in the daring which lets the ends of the 
white mantle he against the white shoulder of Christ is quite modern. 
These white tones, with the dull purple red of the background 
formed by the mantle and the blue of the angels above, give an 
effect of coolness to the picture, which is by no means, however, 
a hard or repellent coldness, but is silvery and shimmering. The 
charm of type, the wonderful softness of the flesh and the har- 
mony and atmospheric quality of the colouring cannot be put 
into words; they must be seen and felt. 

In the pictures from the altar of the English Trading Com- 
pany there are remaining to us, as we have seen, two idyllic 
scenes from the Life of the Virgin, three tragic scenes from 
the Passion and two dramatic scenes from the Life of St. Thomas 
of Canterbury. The scenes from the Life of the Virgin and 
from the Life of St. Thomas are painted against a brilliant red 
background dotted with small gold stars. In "The Nativity," 
God the Father appears in a light so bright that it blots out 
the stars all about him. His countenance is one of high dig- 









MASTER FRAXCKE 55 

nity, his hair and beard are white and from his mouth rays 
of light proceed which fall upon the infant Christ lying on the earth 
below. Before the Child kneels the Virgin Mother in a white robe 
with bands of purple, her long fair hair falling in heavy, wavy 
strands over her shoidders. This attitude of the Virgin is in itself 
sufficient to mark the picture as a work of the XV century, since not 
before that time did the artists conceive of the Mother as worshipping 
the Child; in earlier pictures of the Nativity, as for instance, in 
Master Bertram's, the mother holds the Babe in her arms. Beside 
the Virgin kneel three small, winsome angels with curling hair and 
long draperies, who hold up a blue curtain as if to screen the holy 
pair. The halos are of rays of light; light is radiated also from the 
body of the Divine Child. To the right, ox and ass are eating from 
a stall. In the middle distance, on a rocky plateau, is a grove of 
stunted trees, all out of proportion in size to the other details of the 
picture; on the hill in the background sheep are grazing and to their 
shepherds angels are telling the glad tidings. The picture is a 
graceful idyll, full of peace and tenderness and lyric charm, and 
gives, in addition, with remarkable success, the impression of a lovely 
vision seen in a flash of supernatural fight which breaks through the 
darkness of the night. It is an interesting attempt to do with the 
limited technical means at hand in the XV century what Correggio 
accomplished two centuries later. 

In "The Adoration of the Kings," a black cloud obscures many 
stars, and from the midst of its darkness the Star of Bethlehem 
shines forth. On the foot of a bed, which is covered with a red 
spread and has two dainty white cushions, the Virgin sits very 
erect and stately. So youthful and girlish is she that involuntarily 
the onlooker is moved to smile at the dignity and air of remoteness 
with which she is invested, as he would at the assumptions of a 
child "pretending." The picture is very full of movement; the 
oldest of the kings and the Christ Child are busy with the treasures, 
the one with the large ermine collar is pointing to the Star and the 
young one in the fashionable pleated coat with very long sleeves, 
who wears a crown on his ringleted hair, is shading his eyes osten- 
tatiously with his hand in order to look at its brightness. Joseph, 
too, is occupied; he has opened a great strong box and his right 



56 



GERMAN MASTERS OF ART 



hand is outstretched to take the costly gifts and put them away in 
this safe place. 

Most interesting, especially in the scenes from the Passion, are 
the master's devices for creating the illusion of depth in his pictures, 
without possessing any knowledge of perspective or having before 
him as examples anything much more advanced than the flat frescoes 
and tapestries. In "The Scourging," he has set up in the foreground 
a fence-like grating which separates the onlooker from the roofed 
portico in which the villains are tormenting the gentle Christ, who 
is bound to a column. Outside this fence, on the left, on a throne, 
on the arms of which are beautifully carved, small lions, Pilate, 
wearing a curious hat with a sort of visor, and a handsome mantle, 
sits with his hands outspread upon his knees and watches the scene 
intently. Caiaphas, with ringleted hair, one hand resting on the 
head of one of the carved lions, the other with forefinger extended to 
touch Pilate's breast, seems to be endeavouring to drive home some 
argument that will convince the Governor. The impression is given 
of the space at the left in which are Pilate and Caiaphas; and of con- 
siderable room where the Scourging is taking place; but that the 
artist really knows nothing of perspective and has no "point of sight" 
is betrayed by his showing us the outside of the hall as well as the in- 
side, including even the tiles of the roof. 

In the "Bearing the Cross" the effect of depth is gained by the 
very original device of putting a clear stream or pool of water in the 
immediate foreground, along the farther side of which the troubled 
procession wends its way to Calvary. In "The Entombment" the 
impression of space is conveyed by the rocks, the small bush and the 
mourning figure in the foreground. 

A frequent device used by Master Francke in creating the illusion 
of depth is that of letting persons or things blot out in part the persons 
or things supposed to be behind them in the picture. So in "The 
Flight of St. Thomas" the hillock cutting off from view the lower part 
of the legs of the horse on which the saint is riding, sets the horse 
back from the foreground of the picture, and thereby conveys an im- 
pression of its depth. In "The Martyrdom" the one monk cutting 
off from view about half of the second and all but a small bit of the 




Photograph by Joh. Xohring, Lubeck 

MASTER FRANCKE 

Thomas "a Becket Fleeing From Assassins 

ktnsthalle, hamburg 




Photograph hy Joh. Nohring, Lubeck 



MASTER FRAXCKE 

The Entombment 
klnsthalle, hamburg 



MASTER FRANCKE 57 

face of a third conveys the idea of distance and depth within the 
picture. 

Master Francke does not, however, succeed in detaching his 
draped figures entirely from the background; they still remain quite 
flat. In "The Nativity," the white robes of the Virgin and the curtain 
held by the angels take the place of that detachment and sculptural 
roundness in some measure. In "The Scourging," the curving outward 
of the body of Christ so that the light is seen between it and the 
column to which it is bound gives an effect of modelling. This 
problem of detachment greatly interested the artist, though he did 
not arrive at a solution of it but only at the use of skilful expedients. 
To be sine, he had not yet learned of the new medium of oils 
which the Van Eycks were just at this time beginning to use in 
the neighbouring Netherlands; the German master worked only 
in tempera, mixing his paints, probably, with white of egg. 

The people in Master Francke's pictures are not individualised 
to any extent. Here and there, however, a portrait head appears, 
as, in "The Entombment," that of Mary Cleophas with her hair wound 
around her head in heavy braids. The kings in "The Adoration," 
Pilate, Caiaphas and some of the tormentors in "The Scourging" wear 
the dress of the period. The scenes from the Life of St. Thomas are 
marked by greater lifelikeness and more detailed characterisation 
than the more sacred scenes from the Life of Christ. St. Thomas on 
horseback or struck down by his assassin, kneeling in all his pontifical 
robes, his jewelled mitre knocked off on the ground beside him, the 
blood streaming down his face, is a definite individual. His assas- 
sins are all clearly characterised, the man clad in armour and 
wearing a helmet, so strongly that it might be a portrait from life. 

The emotion in Master Francke's dramatic pictures is nowhere 
of extreme violence or intensity. The villains are not exaggerated 
into malevolent demons. In "The Flight of St. Thomas" they do, 
indeed, mock and scoff with great malignity, but in" The Martyrdom" 
they are only grim. Even in "The Scourging of Christ" only the one 
with the rope girdle and strange, rope headdress, who holds Christ 
by a lock of hair, reveals, in the movement of his body, real joy in 
his nefarious task. In "Bearing the Cross" the villains are more brutal 
in their urging of the half-fainting prisoner to his doom. The 



58 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART 

suffering Christ, though frail and emaciated, is not fearfully distorted 
either in limbs or features. The mourners observe a hushed decorum 
in their grief. Their eyes are sometimes red with weeping; in the 
Cross Bearing the Virgin hides her face in her handkerchief; in the 
group under the cross she folds her long, fine hands upon her breast; 
one of the other women presses a cool finger to her hot and swollen 
eyeballs. In "The Entombment," Mary Magdalen does give way more 
passionately to her sorrow, pushing back, with a movement of utter 
despair, the hair which has escaped from its covering and falls about 
her tear-stained face. Perhaps the most impressive figure in all 
these Passion scenes and the one which expresses total abandonment 
to grief, is the wholly draped figure in red, alone, kneeling between 
the spectator and grave in "The Entombment." It is indeed a touch 
which amazes us in this early picture, as one we would look for 
only from the most modern artists — from Bocklin, for instance. 
The lone, shrouded figure crouching there grips your interest on 
the first approach to the picture and never ceases to arouse your 
wonder and to hold your attention and sympathy. 

But after all, no full appreciation of this painter is possible with- 
out taking into account his gifts as a born colourist. His colours 
are now joyous and glowing and blended into perfect harmony, now 
so close to one another in tone as to reveal a quite modern feeling for 
values, while his attempts to create an atmosphere, as in the night 
scene of "The Nativity" and the subdued silvery tones of the 
"Man of Sorrows," are astonishingly successful for his age. 

If we consider the two great early painters of Hamburg side by 
side we find in the XIV century master a joy in plant and animal life 
which is lacking in Master Francke. Wherever possible, Bertram 
delights in picturing the forest with all the play of light and shadow 
among its trees; Francke introduces it in only two pictures, "The 
Flight of St. Thomas a Becket" and "The Nativity," in which 
the groves are very similar to those in Master Bertram's pictures 
and suggest the thought that Francke had been his pupil in 
landscape painting. The light and shade are much less closely 
observed, however, and the trees possess no such distinct individu- 
ality. Animals, too, appear in Master Francke's scenes only when, 
as in "The Nativity," they are called for by tradition; they are quite 



MASTER FRANCKE 59 

conventional and reveal none of the loving observation which is 
so evident in "The Annunciation to the Shepherds," "Joachim among 
the Shepherds," or "The Nativity," of Master Bertram's Buxtehude 
altar. On the other hand, in the creation of such an atmospheric 
effect as the light shining in the darkness of the night of "The 
Nativity," Master Francke is immeasurably in advance of the older 
painter. He is also able better to control the movements and 
glances of his figures, and the lines and angles of mouths and noses. 
Movement he gives with astonishing naturalness in "The Resurrec- 
tion," in the swift rising of Christ, with fluttering flag and mantle, 
from the tomb. Extraordinarily rhythmic is the arrangement of 
the figures behind the grave in "The Entombment," with the 
sarcophagus placed diagonally, the body of Christ at a still sharper 
angle and the lines of figures swaying, as it were, in two parallel, 
diagonal fines of three and three, with Mary Cleophas as the 
central point. In colouring, too, the later master has the greater 
gift; Master Francke delights in colour not merely as a means to 
an end, but for its own sake, for the beauty of it. 

In the century following Master Francke, there seem to have 
been no painters of great distinction in Hamburg — so far, at least, as 
has been discovered — although in 1490 they were sufficiently 
numerous to organise a Guild. One Heinrich Funhof is men- 
tioned in the archives as the painter of an altar for St. George's 
Hospital Church in 1483. Absalom Stumme painted, in 1499, an 
altar for the City Council, and in the same year his stepson, 
Heinrich Borneman, finished, for the Painters' Guild, the altar in 
the Jacobikirche which presents St. Luke painting the portrait of 
the Madonna, St. Luke at the Supper at Emmaus, and the 
Burial of St. Luke. 



CHAPTER VII 

COLOGNE 

THE IDEALISTS 

Master Wilhelm — Master of the Madonna with the Bean Blossom 
(Hermann Wynrich?) — Stephan Lochner 

IN the art of Cologne in the XIV and first half of the XV century 
before the painters had come under the domination of the art of 
th e Netherlands, the aesthetic and religious ideals of the Middle 
Ages find full expression. The Virgin is the central object of interest 
and the artistic ideal is a type akin to those in the illustrations of 
the Minne-songs. Tall and slender like the statues in their narrow 
niches in the Gothic Cathedrals, with sloping shoulders, high fore- 
head, heavy-lidded, downcast eyes, small nose, finely cut lips, 
short chin, very long and tapering fingers, the Virgin and the female 
saints about her, with their air of sweet detachment from the world, 
are little more than shadowy dream forms, incorporeal abstractions 
who would inspire a poet to bring to them the homage of reverential 
devotion. Yet even his spiritual offering would lie all unnoticed by 
these saints who heed not at all what transpires in this earthly 
world but are lost in the contemplation of divine love and of a 
heavenly country. In this utter world-oblivion, this absorption in 
things of the spirit, they are the direct expression of that mystic 
philosophy which was preached with such ardour and received with 
such sympathy in Cologne. In her cloisters and from her pulpits 
Eckart enunciated the principle of the indwelling of God in man and 
the oneness in God "of all that lives and moves, that blooms and 
withers," and taught that God is to be sought in his creation, in a 
man's own heart, through the sinking of self in contemplation. 
Johannes Tauler came to Cologne from Strassburg to preach 
sermons of which the keynote was the renunciation of self, the 
negation of the personal will in order to become merged into 
God. As very illustrations of this teaching the Virgin and 
saints stand in the pictures with downcast eyes veiled by heavy 

60 



THE IDEALISTS 61 

eyelids, absorbed in devout contemplation, dreamy, mystic. It 
was of such that Tauler's friend Heinrich Suso spoke, when he 
recommended the faithful to surround themselves with good 
pictures "that the heart might ever be reminded of the presence 
of God and be turned toward Him." 

A number of pictures, as yet unassigned to any master, remain to 
us from the early years of the XIV century. Of these the triptych 
in Cologne Gallery with the Crucifixion as central theme, may be 
considered representative. The types and garments are those of 
mosaic art, the technique is crude, the scenes are full of agitation, 
which is expressed not only in the movements and gestures of the 
people but in the restlessness of the folds of the garments. 

The one great artist of the XIV century in Cologne whose name 
has come down to us i.<= Master Wilhehn, who is mentioned in the 
chronicles in 1358, 1368, 1370, 1378, as Master Wilhelm of Cologne, 
or of Herle, a little village near Aix-la-Chapelle. The Limberg 
chronicler wrote of him: "At this time there was a painter in 
Cologne whose name was Wilhelm. He was the best painter in 
all the German lands, and was so esteemed by the masters. He 
painted everyone of every type as if he were alive." 

Many controversies have been waged over the works attributed 
"to Master Wilhelm. A picture in Berlin Gallery representing, in 
thirty-three sections, on a gold ground, scenes from the lives of Christ 
and the Virgin, which was formerly ascribed to him, is now catalogued 
"Cologne Master about 1400." In Cologne Gallery the remains of 
mural paintings from the Rathaus depicting Emperor Karl IV and 
four other men, probably judges or heroes, are authentic and are 
there ascribed to "Master Wilhelm, 1370." Formerly the St. Clara 
Altar in the Cathedral and the "Madonna with the Bean Blossom" 
in the Gallery were also attributed to him. Thode and others 
object to such an attribution, that it is unreasonable to assign such 
a work as the "Madonna with the Bean Blossom" to so early a date as 
the middle of the XIV century; that it is so closely related to the work 
of such a Master of the XV century as Stephan Lochner that it 
unquestionably belongs to the early part of the XV century and was, 
in all probability, the work of such a pupil of Master Wilhelm's as 
his successor in the headship of the school in Cologne, Hermann 



62 



GERMAN MASTERS OF ART 



Wynrich. This Hermann Wynrich from Wesel, first mentioned 
in Cologne in 1387, was a pupil of Master Wilhelm's, who, 
after his master's death, bought his house, married his widow, 
Frau Jutta, and became head of his school. He was evidently 
held in high esteem as a painter, for the Guild appointed him 
five times as its Senator in the City Council, for the last time 
in 1414, in which year he died. 

The largest and most important work of the master, whom we 
shall call by his name, is the St. Clara Altar,* which now forms 
the High Altar in Cologne Cathedral. The altar is built in 
Gothic style. On the door of the shrine is represented a priest 
in the act of elevating the Host; about him are acolytes holding 
candles and his mitre. On either side are twelve pictures in two 
rows, one above the other, the lower representing scenes from 
the youth of Christ, the upper, scenes from his Passion. The 
scenes from his childhood and youth are idyllic; the people 
move in an atmosphere of childlike innocence, unconscious of 
aught save love and tenderness. In the Passion scenes, the 
artist seeks the world over for villains bad enough to be the tor- 
mentors of the Holy One. Unequal, with his lyric gifts, to pre- 
senting the dramatic scenes with the tragic intensity they de- 
mand, these demoniacal men usually fail to be convincing and 
even, like a child's conception of pirates, in their exaggeration 
and unreality appeal to our sense of humor. In the Crucifixion 
the painter does not make any attempt at realism, but presents 
it in the strictly traditional manner. 

The outer sides of the outer wings of the altar are later works; 
they are painted on linen stretched over wood, while the rest of the 
altar is on wood. 

A triptych of much beauty, in Cologne Gallery, "The Madonna 
with the Bean Blossom," ascribed to the same master — whether Her- 
mann Wynrich or Master Wilhelm — has already been mentioned. On 
the central section are the Madonna and Child, on the side panels 
St. Barbara with tower and palm and St. Catherine with sword and 
wheel. The Virgin is painted in half length, robed in blue and wearing 
a brown mantle. Over her head she wears a drapery in the same 

* So called because it was originally in St. Clara's Church, Cologne. 




STEFAX LOCHXER 

Madonna in Rose Arbour 
wallraf-richartz museum, cologne 



THE IDEALISTS 63 

two colours, which, in front, permits much of her reddish-gold hair to 
be seen. In her left hand she holds a branch of the garden bean 
plant in flower; on her right arm the Christ Child with ringleted hair 
and wearing a curious partial drapery. In his left hand he holds a 
rosary; with his right he caresses his mother's face. 

The two saints on the wings are full length figures, extremely tall, 
with exceedingly narrow shoulders; they wear long draperies laid in 
regular, parallel but graceful folds. Their golden-blond hair hangs 
to full length, softly waved; delicately wrought crowns rest upon their 
heads; their hands are exaggeratedly long with tapering fingers. 
Though the background is gold, the earth on which they are standing 
is blossoming thickly with countless small flowers. The colours are 
all light and cheerful, with much gold in the brocaded stuffs of the 
saints' gowns. 

But more than by the charm of the lovely and innocent saints in 
their radiant yet softly coloured robes, the attention is held and the 
spirit rested and refreshed by the atmosphere of the picture. Over 
it peace seems to brood visibly, such quietness, such contempla- 
tive stillness reigns. All the persons portrayed are utterly uncon- 
scious of themselves and of us, absorbed as they are in their mystical 
visions. 

A picture which is, in subject, a twin sister to the "Madonna 
with the Bean Blossom" is the "Madonna with the Pea Blossom"* 
in the Germanic Museum, Nuremberg. It presents a youthful 
Virgin of considerable charm, with the Child in her arms; each 
holds a pea blossom. 

This master of many names has recently received yet another. 
He has become known as the Master of St. Veronica, from the picture 
in Munich Pinakothek representing St. Veronica holding the hand- 
kerchief on which is the thorn-crowned head of the Man of Sorrows; 
in each of the lower corners of the picture are three small singing 
angels. 

As the centre of the art life of Cologne this artist gathered about 
him a large school of pupils who continued to work into the middle 
of the XV century. Most famous of them all was Stephan Lochner, 

* Suspected by some recent investigators of being a counterfeit, painted in the early part of the 
XIX century. 



64 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART 

the greatest painter Cologne was to know in all her art history. 
Master Stephan was born in Meersburg, on Lake Constance, but 
his life as an artist was all spent in Cologne. The first record of his 
residence there dates from October 27th, 1442, when he and his wife 
Lisbeth bought a house near the Cathedral. He must have pros- 
pered, for two years later, in 1444, he sold this house and bought a 
much larger one. In 1448 he was elected by his Guild Senator to 
the City Council, an honour which was again conferred upon him in 
1451, in which year he died. 

When Diirer was in Cologne in October, 1520, on his way to the 
Netherlands, he recorded in his diary: — "Item, have given two white 
pfennig for opening up the picture Master Stephan made in Cologne." 
This picture was the altar which was painted for the Rathaus 
Chapel, the building of which was finished in 1426; it has been since 
1810 in St. Michael's Chapel in the Cathedral. 

On the outside is the Annunciation. The Virgin, girlish look- 
ing, her hair falling in heavy, wavy masses over her shoulders, her 
very full mantle hanging in soft, lightly broken folds, is kneeling at a 
carved prayer desk on which lies an open book. The impression of 
the interior of a room is given by a rich, brocaded curtain hung 
from a rod across the background of the picture. Against it is 
placed a seat on which are cushions and a vase of lilies. On the 
other wing, with a similar curtain as background, the angel, who 
has entered through a door with round arch, which is visible on 
the right, kneels lightly, his great wings still spread for flight. In 
his hand he bears a sceptre and a scroll on which is written his 
message. 

When the altar is open, the central section shows the Adoration 
of the Kings; on the wings are the patron saints of Cologne, Ursula 
and Gereon, with their companions. 

The Virgin in the Adoration, wearing a crown and sitting upon a 
throne, holds the Christ Child who, with upraised fingers, blesses the 
white-bearded king in the gold-brocaded, ermine-trimmed, red 
velvet mantle, who, kneeling before him, presents the rich gifts he has 
brought to this infant King of Kings. Behind this venerable, kneeling 
king with his life-like attitude and expression, is a group of his 
followers who bear a banner blazoned with the star and crescent. 



THE IDEALISTS 65 

Among them stands out conspicuously a handsome young prince 
with ringleted hair, wearing a diadem. On the right are the other 
two kings with their attendants bearing gifts. In the upper air circle 
little angels with wide-spread wings, two of tliem peeping over the 
back of the throne with all the eager interest and curiosity of human 
children. Indeed angels in German pictures differ from those 
represented in the art of any other country. Throughout its whole 
course from Master Bertram and Stephan Lochner to Diirer, we find 
them the same tiny, eager, winsome beings — except when, for a 
period, the influence of the Flemish painters was so absolute that 
the German painters adopted the large, gracefully draped angel 
universal in the art of the Netherlands. In Italian art we find 
the sturdy, bacchanalian putti, the graceful, tall angels and, in the 
Venetian pictures, the small, music-making angels which yet are 
much larger and more mature than the angels in the German 
altar-pieces. In such a picture as Raphael's "Madonna of the 
Baldachin" the angels reading the scroll are not large, it is 
true; but in their winged nudity, with their worldly-wise air, they 
are rather little pagan Amors than angels. The characteristically 
German angels in art are very small, round-faced, alert, fairy- 
like creatures, dressed in straight, scant little dresses, and with 
large wings and short, curly hair. They are always so interested, 
so intent, so busy. They worship with such devoted love, they 
play with such whole-souledness, they bring apples, flowers or 
whatever offers, with such eagerness to the Holy Child! In the 
incessant activity of such tiny creatines there is something ten- 
derly humorous, while their simplicity and innocence is indescrib- 
ably touching. 

On the left wing of the altar, St. Ursula of Cologne, in an ermine- 
trimmed mantle, wearing a crown and holding in her clasped hands 
the arrow, which is the symbol of her martyrdom, advances 
slowly and reverently toward the central group. In her train 
are the Prince her lover, a Pope, a Bishop and many lovely 
maidens with very full draperies, round, childish faces and an ex- 
pression of innocence and such absorbed devotion that only one 
of all the company lets her eyes stray toward the spectator. On 
the right wing, St. Gereon accoutred in full armour, the cross as 



66 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART 

his device on breastplate and banner, is attended by a company 
of youthful knights. 

The Virgin in the Adoration wears the conventional garments, 
but fur-lined; all the others wear the costumes of 1440-1450, made of 
beautiful materials, richly trimmed, and in glowing colours. The 
types are stronger physically and more human than those on the 
St. Clara altar. The shoulders of the women are still very narrow, 
but the face has a bony frame, the hands are shorter and more 
capable, the throat is quite muscular. The men are remarkably 
able-bodied; St. Gereon stands firmly planted on both feet, a splendid 
type of young manly vigour and determination. The Christ Child is 
in beauty of form and correctness of drawing the most perfect in the 
XV century, while the head of the kneeling king might almost find a 
place in a Leonardo cartoon. Here and there is a figure which was 
evidently inspired by a real and living person, but the lifelikeness is 
not strongly insisted upon. The atmosphere remains unworldly; 
like the little angels looking over the back of the throne, all the 
participants in this ceremonial occasion are absorbed in the Babe 
whose little foot the mother holds with such human tenderness, 
while he so solemnly gives his divine benediction. 

Here again we note a German sentimental touch. The relations 
between the Virgin Mother and her divine Son never lose their 
human element. In the art of Italy and, in large measure, of the 
Netherlands, the Virgin is usually but the bearer of God Incarnate, 
whom she presents to the world for its worship and adoration. In 
German art, the Child is not only Son of God, but Son of Mary and 
there is in almost all Madonna pictures some touch which reveals the 
human love between mother and babe, as the Virgin holding his tiny 
foot in this altar of Master Stephan's or the child caressing the 
mother's face in the "Madonna with the Bean Blossom." 

Painted probably at an earlier date than the altar in the Cathe- 
dral, was the "Madonna with the Violet" in the Archiepiscopal 
Museum in Cologne, one of the most beautiful of all German pictures. 
In front of a brocaded curtain stands the Virgin Mother, tall, slight, 
girlish, yet stately, too, by virtue of her reserve and dignity. Her 
brilliant red mantle falls from her slender shoulders to hang in 
unstudied and graceful folds, turned back here and there to reveal the 



THE IDEALISTS 67 

white lining and the blue robe underneath. Her face is finely oval, 
with straight nose, large eyes and high forehead; the flesh tints are 
soft and clear. On her head she wears a jewelled diadem; her pale, 
red-gold hair is caught at the nape of the neck, to fall again loosely in 
long, heavy, curling strands. In her left hand she holds a violet; on 
her right arm she bears the Child, in a straight dress of transparent 
gauze. The flesh is a marvel of softness, the rounding of the small 
body of unusual beauty. The face is babyish though wholly grave 
as he raises the fingers of his right hand to bless the small, kneeling 
nun, in black, fur-lined mantle, with white robe and headdress, 
who, as the donor of the picture, is presented in exceedingly small 
proportions. This was, according to the inscription, Elizabeth of 
Reichenstein, who afterward, in 1452, became abbess of St. 
Cecilia's Cloister. 

On the other side of the brocaded curtain are two elfin angels, 
the one writing busily, the other apparently listening intently to the 
music made by the three angels who are singing in the golden sky 
above, where also God the Father and the Dove are visible between 
the clouds. 

The impression given by the picture is one of great charm of the 
sweet, serious people, glowing yet harmonious colours, an all- 
pervading atmosphere of unworldliness and that mystic apartness 
which we call holiness. 

An idyllic scene which recalls to us at once the dreams of the 
Minnesingers and the visions of the Mystics is presented in this 
master's "Madonna of the Rose Arbour" in Cologne Gallery. In a 
bower of climbing vines and blossoming roses and lilies, the crowned 
Virgin, dreamy and remote, is seated on a veritable carpet of flowers, 
holding the Babe on her knee. About the holy pair, in semicircle, 
crowd tiny angels with outspread wings, adoring, bringing gifts 
and making music on the organ, psaltery, harp and viol. In the 
upper air two of them hold back a gold-brocaded curtain to reveal 
God the Father, the Dove and a heaven full of cherubs. The 
Virgin is robed entirely in blue, dark, intense yet softly luminous; 
the angels, in pink, red and yellow, are like flowers about her. 
It is a very small picture, like just a line of perfect poetry, a 
strain of exquisite melody. The stillness of some of these Ma- 



68 



GERMAN MASTERS OF ART 



donna pictures might be too unearthly, their holiness too oppres- 
sive, were it not relieved by the quick movements of the angels 
bearing their eager tribute. 

The beauty of such a picture made itself felt at this period in 
Northern Italy and the influence of Stephan Lochner and of 
other early masters of Cologne is very evident in such a work 
as Stefano da Zevio's "Madonna in the Garden," in Innsbruck, in 
which the artist takes up the theme, adopts the types and tries 
to infuse into the picture the sentiment of the German School. 

More full of action than the Madonna pictures is the "Presenta- 
tion in the Temple," painted for St. Catherine's Church, Cologne, in 
1447, but now in Darmstadt Gallery. On a gold background are 
shown, in the upper air, God the Father and angels who watch the 
scene in the cathedral, where, before the altar, the High Priest, in 
brocaded robes, solemn and devout in bearing, holds the Christ Child. 
Behind him stand other priests, monks and citizens. The Virgin, of 
the type of the Madonna with the Violet, kneels with eyes cast down, 
offering the doves. Behind her are attendant maidens, only one of 
whom ventures to look out at us, all unseeingly. In front of the 
altar are tiny, alert and interested acolytes carrying candles. A 
touch of humour, which brings to mind the Mystery Plays of the 
period, is lent by Joseph, who is conspicuously busy counting out 
the money from the wallet that hangs at his side. 

Stephan Lochner's limitations are manifest in such an altar as 
that painted for St. Lawrence's Church, Cologne, of which the central 
section, the Last Judgment, is now in Cologne Gallery, while the 
wings, which show the Martyrdom of the Apostles and six saints, 
are in the Stadel Institute, Frankfort, and in Munich Pinakothek. 
In the Last Judgment the Christ enthroned upon the rainbow is 
much too gentle to be the judge of all the world; the fat monks, 
the popes and bishops, the kings, the extortioners and other 
sinners whom the devils seize, do not awaken in us any sense of 
horror or of pity in the overwhelming calamity which has befallen 
them, but rather provoke a smile at their sorry plight. But the 
lines of the Blessed whom angels lead through those great Gothic 
gates to Paradise, while choirs of angels sing songs of gladness! 
These move us almost to tears by their childlike, wondering joy 
as upon their faces shines the light of the new, eternal morning. 




STEFAN LOCHXER 

Madonna with the Violet 

archbishop's palace, cologne 




Sal 

S J s 
h x % 

to a I 

- j 

S K 

H j 
CO J 

< 1 

"3 * 



CHAPTER VIII 

COLOGNE 

THE REALISTS 

Master of the Life of Mary — Master of the Glorification of the Virgin — Master of 
St. George's Altar — Master of the Holy Kinship — Master of St. Severin — 
Master of St. Bartholomew 

SO great an artist as Stephan Lochner naturally attracted 
many students to his workshop and inspired many imitators 
to work in his manner. A pupil whose work so closely resembled 
his master's that it w T as for a long time attributed to Lochner him- 
self, is knowm as the "Master of the Heisterbach Altar" from the 
altar brought from the little Rhineland village of that name and now 
in sections in Cologne, Munich and other galleries. Another pupil 
painted the fourteen scenes from the Life of St. Ursula, in Cologne 
Gallery. But though there were many painters who worked in 
Stephan Lochner's manner, his influence in Cologne w T as not enduring, 
nor was any other great artist raised up to take his place and to carry 
on the development of painting in Cologne along its own original and 
characteristic lines. It is indeed questionable if any marked degree 
of development would have been possible, the limitations were so 
definite. It is barely thinkable that a great genius might have 
brought it to its fullest perfection in an art expression which 
would, possibly, have been similar to that of the English Pre- 
Raphaelites. No such genius appeared, however, but instead, a 
powerful influence from without invaded the art of Cologne and 
ended by dominating it completely. During the second half of the 
XV century the realistic and technically capable art of the 
Netherlands rushed like a mighty tidal wave over the lyric, 
dreamy, mystical art of Cologne and swept it out of being. 
Cologne painters in the second half of the XV century adopted 
all the characteristics of the school of the Van Eycks, especially 
of such masters as Roger van der Weyden, Dirk Bouts and Hans 
Memling. The types became larger and more robust; the faces 

69 



70 



GERMAN MASTERS OF ART 



were constructed over a bony frame; the knuckles, joints and 
muscles were emphasised; the gold background was superseded by 
landscape; the colours were mixed in oils, which gave more body 
to the figures and contributed to their detachment from the back- 
ground and to a gain in the apparent depth of the picture; the 
fight was broad daylight, which brought out every detail, even 
to the windows of the houses and the leaves of the shrubs in the remote 
distance. 

The larger bodies of bone and flesh, the individual types and the 
deeper colours inevitably wrought a change in the atmosphere of the 
pictures. These were not visionary saints but human people and the 
scenes in which they were presented were happenings in real life. 
Before these new, vital conceptions, expressed with such command of 
technical resources, the unscientific, unrealistic art of Cologne could 
not stand. It yielded itself completely, and its painters emulated 
the Flemish masters so ardently that in the second half of 
the XV century it is sometimes difficult to distinguish between the 
pictures of the two schools. Yet even in this period the old spirit 
lingers in the German pictures and there still clings to them an 
atmosphere of detachment from the world which is foreign to the vig- 
orously human and worldly types in the works of the masters of 
the Netherlands. 

One of the Cologne painters who was influenced in a marked 
degree by the art of the Netherlands was the Master of the Life of 
Mary (Meister des Marienlebens), who worked in the years between 
1460 and 1480. He has been named from his chief work, an altar 
in Munich Pinakothek — with a separate panel in the National 
Gallery, London — which represents in eight scenes the principal 
moments in the life of the Virgin. The types, garments, headdresses 
and landscapes all resemble those in Roger van der Weyden's pic- 
tures; some of the scenes are, indeed, almost like free reproductions 
of the same scenes in Roger's altar of the "Adoration of the Magi" 
in the Pinakothek. But though the landscape is worked out in great 
detail, the Master of the Life of Mary is old-fashioned enough to 
prefer a gold background or sky. The people are not quite so robust 
as in Roger's altar-pieces; the faces and forms are, as a rule, less 
bony, the contours more rounded, the hair softer, and the people 



THE REALISTS 71 

characterised by a contemplative or sentimental quality which 
marks the master as belonging to Cologne. 

The Master of the Lyversberg Passion (Meister der Lyvers- 
bergischen Passion), named after the altar containing eight 
scenes from the Passion of Christ which came to Cologne Gal- 
lery from the collection of Jacob Lyversberg, is now generally 
accepted as identical with the Master of the Life of Mary. As 
the scenes from the Passion are less sure in execution than those 
from the Life of the Virgin, they are considered earlier works. 

A second painter who was dominated by the influence of the art 
of the Netherlands, was the Master of the Glorification of Mary 
(Meister der Verherrlichung Maria), who worked between 1460 and 
1480, and who is named from his chief work in Cologne Gallery. 
This altar-piece shows the Virgin enthroned upon clouds which are 
upheld by angels, holding the Child, to whom she offers an apple 
by way of diversion. In the clouds above are God the Father, 
the Dove and angels. On the earth beneath is the Immaculate 
Lamb, from whose heart blood is gushing into a chalice, as in 
the Van Eyck's Ghent Altar. Away to the gold background a 
landscape stretches, with a city, a river and high rocks in front of 
which stands a sybil, who is pointing out the Virgin to the kneel- 
ing Emperor Agustus and his train. To the right are Saints 
John the Baptist, Martin, Gregory and others; to the left, St. 
Catherine with crown, wheel and sword and, behind her, St. 
Bridget with her cow, Barbara, Clara, Ursula, Cecilia and Mary- 
Magdalen. The types are strong and muscular, the landscape 
similar to that in the pictures by the Master of the Life of Mary; 
the colours are dark, the flesh tones grey with heavy shadows. 

A contemporary of the Master of the Life of Mary was the 
painter, who, from his series of nine scenes from the legend of St. 
George, is known as the Master of St. George's Altar (Meister der 
Georgslegende). The artist tells his stories in minute detail, but 
with little joy in the telling, for his people are very plain, with flat 
faces, excessively high foreheads and short, square chins, and his 
colouring is dull, with the flesh tones grey and muddy. 

A master whose works reveal the influence of Hans Mending is 
the Master of the Holy Kinship (Meister der Heiligen Sippe), who 



72 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART 

worked on into the XVI century, as he was active in Cologne from 
1480 to 1520. The "Holy Kinship" triptych in Cologne Gallery 
shows, in the central picture, the Virgin and St. Anne seated before 
a brocaded panel hung in the manner beloved by the painters of the 
Netherlands. Between them, they hold the Christ Child, who is 
reaching out to the left toward St. Catherine, to place on her finger 
the betrothal ring. To the right is St. Barbara, seated beside her 
tower and reading in an illuminated book; behind her stands her 
father. On low stools in the foreground are, to the right, Mary 
Salome with the small James and John playing together at her knee; 
to the left, Mary Cleophas, nursing at her breast a babe whose 
attention little Simon Zelotes is trying to attract by offering him 
an apple. Judas Thaddeus and James the Lesser playing on the 
ground complete this group. Others of the "Kinship" are of the 
company. Through the opening between the outer pillars and 
the tapestry panel look Joachim and Joseph, just as Memling looks 
in through a window at the Holy Night he has portrayed. The 
Joseph, indeed, bears a marked resemblance to that same Memling 
portrait of himself. In the upper air, behind and supporting the 
baldachin, are angels in long, floating garments, similar to those in al- 
most all Flemish pictures of the period. In the background a 
glimpse is given of a rolling landscape intersected by a river; to right 
and to left we may look into the interior of two rooms and see 
the Presentation in the Temple and the Death of the Virgin. 

On the inner side of the left wing are St. Roch afflicted 
with the plague and St. Nicasius holding the severed top of his head 
in his mitre, and presenting the donor; in the background is the 
Nativity. On the right wing are St. Gudule, bearing a lantern and 
presenting the wife of the donor, and St. Elizabeth giving bread to a 
beggar; in the background is the Assumption of the Virgin. 

On the outer side of the wings are, on the right, St. Leodogar, 
Bishop of Autun, with an awl, St. Achatius with the ten thousand 
martyrs, and the male members of the donor's family; on the left, 
St. Cecilia with her organ, St. Genevieve, whose candle a devil is 
trying to blow out with a bellows, St. Helen with the cross, another 
saint with book and palm and the female members of the donor's 
family. 



THE REALISTS 73 

The Virgin and saints so closely resemble Memling's that they 
might almost have been copied from his Brussels altar. The less 
sacred persons in the large central group are taken direct from life. 
Joseph, with his long hair, downcast eyes and meditative expression 
might be the artist himself; Joachim, with large, well-defined features 
and keen glance, a patrician of Cologne; St. Catherine's father (?), 
with the close clipped hair and pointed beard, wearing a velvet coat 
handsomely trimmed with fur and passementerie, was undoubtedly a 
professional man or scientist of the day; he recalls many XVI century 
portraits in Dutch art. The robes worn by all but the Virgin and 
St. Anne are of extreme elegance, of gold brocaded materials, vel- 
vets and ermine, and are made in the height of fashion. The artist 
is particularly fond of red and uses it lavishly. The colours are bright 
and festive but not blended into harmony. The scene is so crowded 
with figures that it is disquieting, an effect which is heightened by 
the patchiness with which the colours are applied. The gold back- 
ground has given place in this picture to a blue sky. 

An artist of distinct individuality, whose works are marked by 
the presence in a high degree of the sentiment characteristic of the 
older Cologne painters is the Master of Saint Severin, who worked 
in Cologne in the years between 1500 and 1515 and who received his 
name from his paintings of saints in the Church of St. Severin. An 
air of great ceremony pervades all his pictures, an evident en- 
deavour to convey the extreme distinction of his personages, which 
results in a certain stiffness and lack of virility in his types. 
His people all bear a curious resemblance to one another, in their 
broad and prominent cheek bones, arched eyebrows, eyes which seem 
to curve upward slightly at the outer corners, large noses and short 
chins. The men are unusually tall and big and in their features 
reminiscent of the people in Dirk Bout's "Judgment of Kaiser Otto," 
though even more reserved and dignified than they. The large altar 
in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, shows in the central panel, 
the Crucifixion, in the foreground of a landscape in which the other 
scenes of the Passion, from the Triumphal Entry to the Ascension, 
are depicted in small proportions. The Crucifixion reveals, in the 
centre, facing the spectator, the Christ, calm and controlled, his 
eyes closed, his face unmarred by physical suffering, save for the 



74 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART 

blood streaming from the crown of thorns. Placed diagonally, to 
right and left of the central cross, are the crosses to which the two 
thieves are tied. All about the central cross throng friends and 
enemies. The Virgin falls fainting into the arms of John, whose 
lips are parted in loud outcry; Mary Magdalen kneeling at the foot 
of the cross, is also crying aloud; the Centurion is proclaiming his 
new-found faith. The picture impresses us with the restraint and 
dignity of its tall, stiff people, who seem to feel not so much personal 
grief as amazement and horror which speaks through their staring 
eyes and parted lips. In the foreground to right and left kneel 
rigidly the donors, Konrad von Eynenberg and his wife. On the 
wings are represented, on the inner sides, the Baptism of Christ and 
Beheading of John the Baptist, on the outer sides, the Virgin and St. 
Christopher, St. John the Baptist and St. Agnes, with donors. 

In the scenes from the legend of St. Ursula, now scattered 
through Cologne, Bonn, the Louvre and other galleries, the master 
has been at great pains to impress us with the eminence of the saint's 
worldly position. The scenes transpire in very large rooms and the 
persons enacting them are so stately and ceremonious that they pre- 
serve a quite unpractical distance from one another. In the "Angel's 
Appearance to St. Ursula" the light effect is 'exceedingly interesting. 
The great curtained bed is set facing the spectator; the saint has 
awakened and raises her hands in prayer as the angel in long, white 
robes, with great wings, gives her his message, emphasizing it point 
by point on his fingers. From the angel radiates a light which dis- 
pels the nightly darkness about the bed of the youthful saint. 
Up a flight of six steps in the rear, in a Gothic room lighted only by 
a candle, we catch a glimpse of the Queen taking leave of her 
daughter who is about to set out on the pilgrimage the angel has 
commanded. 

Standing before this cycle of St. Ursula pictures, there naturally 
come to mind the series of the same scenes painted about the same 
time by two other masters, Hans Memling, of the Netherlands, and 
Carpaccio, the Italian. Memling presents, in pictures of very small 
dimensions, several innocent, young Dutch maidens of the bour- 
geoisie setting forth on their journeyings with much of the stir and 
bustle inevitably attendant upon such undertakings. The scenes 




Photograph by Hermann, Cologne 

MASTER OF ST. BARTHOLOMEW 

The St. Thomas Altar 
wallraf-richartz museum, cologne 



THE REALISTS 75 

are intimate and tender. Carpaeeio's cycle is a revelation of the 
refined, quiet elegance of Venetian patrician life of the period. The 
scenes are stately pageants such as Venice delighted in, with jewelled 
robes, floating banners, cities hung with oriental rugs and rich bro- 
cades, cool and lofty interiors. The German master does not pre- 
sume to the intimacy of Mending; he knows nothing of the gracious 
elegance in the midst of which Carpaeeio's people move; he gives us 
what impresses him most; the almost overpowering dignity and 
sanctity of the principal figures, the colossal nature of the under- 
taking, the heavy shadow of ultimate tragedy which overcasts all 
the scenes with a supernatural seriousness. 

A painter who possessed remarkable technical facility and who, 
to judge from his works, had come into touch with the art of Italy 
as well as of the Netherlands, was the Master of St. Bartholomew, 
named from his altar in Munich Pinakothek. The Master of St. 
Bartholomew's types are finer and more delicately featured than 
those of any of the other Cologne painters of this period. In the 
St. Bartholomew altar, which presents seven saints standing, bear- 
ing their symbols, the forms of St. Bartholomew, St. Agnes and St. 
Cecilia are modelled with almost sculptural roundness and detach- 
ment from the background. The garments are beautifully, if some- 
what consciously, draped; the landscape details are reproduced with 
careful minuteness; the colouring is glowing and harmonious, though 
with a certain nervous accentuation of local colours; the finish is hard 
and brilliant like enamel. 

A certain nervous tension characterises this master, yet not so 
much tension, perhaps, as an excessive sensitiveness which creates 
in and through his people an atmosphere of disquiet. Their glances 
and poses are marked by a nervous intensity which, subdued, as in 
the figure of St. Helena in the St. Thomas altar in Cologne Gallery, 
gives the impression of affectation, and unrestrained, as in the fig- 
ure of St. Thomas, amounts to a vulgar curiosity to satisfy his doubts 
about the wounds of Christ which is most repellent. 

The womanly type in favour with the Master of St. 
Bartholomew, as in the "Virgin and Child" in Cologne Gallery, for 
instance, possesses a very broad forehead with remarkable distance 
between the eyes, which are prominent and downcast, a straight 



76 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART 

and fine nose, a mouth small out of all proportion, and a short chin. 
The exceeding narrowness of the lower part of the face, with the 
exaggeratedly small mouth, taken together with the width between 
the eyes gives an appearance of insincerity, while the expression is 
so excessively sweet as to be almost simpering. 

That the painter had come under the influence of Italian art 
is unmistakable from the introduction, in "The Crucifixion," in 
Cologne Gallery, of many nude cherubs flying about the cross, 
which are of a type that does not appear in the art of either 
Germany or the Netherlands. 

The Master of St. Bartholomew was not an original talent but 
an eclectic who reflected what was going on in the art of the two 
other countries that were artistically active in his age. Although a 
younger contemporary of the Master of St. Severin, who worked 
wholly in the manner of the XV century, much in the Master of St. 
Bartholomew's work speaks of the XVI century and may be said to 
mark the transition to later art. 






CHAPTER IX 

COLOGNE 

THE PORTRAITISTS OF THE XVI CENTURY 

Jan Joost of Calcar — Master of the Death of Mary (Joos van Cleve) — 
Barthel Bruyn — Anton Woensani — Master Hildegard — Hans von Melem — 
Jacob Bink 

NOT only did Cologne painters, as the Master of the Life of 
Mary, the Master of the Holy Kinship, and others, imitate 
with great faithfulness the art of the Netherlands, but in 
the opening years of the XVI century artists from the Netherlands 
moved to Cologne, where they executed many commissions and 
founded schools. So to Calcar, near Cologne, came Jan Joost from 
Haarlem, to paint, in the years between 1505 and 1508, the wings 
of the High Altar in St. Nicholas' Church. Upon the completion 
of this work, he returned to Haarlem where he was active until the 
year of his death, 1529. 

Another Flemish artist, who worked in Cologne from about 1515 
to 1530, has been named, from his principal work, the Master of the 
Death of Mary (Meister des Todes der Maria), but is probably 
identical with that Joos van Cleve the Elder, who was born about 
1485 and died in Antwerp 1525. 

The "Death of the Virgin," which is now in Cologne Gallery, was 
painted in 1515 for the Hackeney family chapel, and about four years 
later the artist painted a second picture with this same subject 
and almost a duplicate of the Hackeney picture, for the Church of 
Santa Maria in Capitol. This is the "Death of the Virgin" which is 
now in Munich Pinakothek. 

In the central section is the Virgin, lying in a large, canopied 
bed; St. John is holding the death candle in her hand. Around the 
bed are the apostles in great agitation; some are running hither 
and thither, some are reading (one wearing spectacles!), one is hasten- 
ing with the oil of anointing. On the wings are the donors with their 
patron saints in a landscape. 

The Renaissance details in the architecture, the movement, 
the draperies, the statuesque figure at the head of the bed, whose 

77 



78 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART 

garments float as if caught by a strong wind, all reveal the Italian 
influence which was by this time making itself felt in a marked 
degree in the works of other masters in the Netherlands. The 
perspective is interesting in the glimpse given into a house across 
the street; the h'ghting, in the shadowed corner between the win- 
dows, the light and shade that play on the men who stand in 
front of a window to the left, and the strange distortion 
of the features of the man who is blowing the incense to make 
it burn and whose face is lighted by the flame. The drawing in these 
pictures is very sharp and definite, the colouring warm and rather 
heavy, the flesh tones reddish. 

In the later works of the Master of the Death of Mary Italian 
influence is yet more evident and as several of his works are to be 
found in Italian galleries, it is reasonable to infer that he made a 
sojourn of some length in that country as well as in Germany. 

Undoubtedly a pupil of the Master of the Death of Mary was 
the Cologne painter, Bartholommaus de Bruyn, commonly known as 
Barthel Bruyn, who was especially distinguished as a portrait painter. 
He was born in Cologne in 1493; in 1519 he was mentioned as one of 
the most prominent members of the guild of painters; in 1550 and 
again in 1553 he was elected to the City Council; he died in 1557. 

Among his early works, dating from about 1515, is an altar in 
Munich Pinakothek which represents Christ on the Cross, saints 
and donors. In this, as in his other altar-pieces, the influence of 
his master is unmistakable. Barthel Bruyn's altars are not particu- 
larly interesting save for the introduction, now and then, of some 
persons whose lifelikeness gives promise of his future greatness as 
a portrait painter. 

About the same time as the influence of Italy became conspicu- 
ous in the pictures by the Master of the Death of Mary, it made 
itself felt also in the work of Barthel Bruyn. In his pictures painted 
after 1524 the people are larger and more statuesque, their movements 
stately and swift and accomplished with a large sweep of draperies. 
Gradually the Roman-Italian influence dominated his work entirely, 
with the same results as in the case of the Venetian, Sebastian del 
Piombo; exaggerated emphasis was placed on form, the colouring 
lost its warmth and beauty. The forms in the master's last period 




Photograph by Franz Hanfstaengl 

BARTOLOMMAUS BRFYN 

Portrait of Burgomaster Johannes van Rtht 
kaiser friedrich museum, berlin 



THE PORTRAITISTS 79 

are of heroic size, the poses bold, the treatment broad and super- 
ficial, the colour cold. 

Barthel Bruyn is, however, best known as a painter of portraits 
and in this, his special field, it was only in his very latest work that 
he became cold and uninteresting. How great he was as a portrait 
painter is evident from the fact that some of his portraits were long 
attributed to Holbein. In their execution there is greater breadth 
and less painfulness of detail than in the portraits by the Master of 
the Death of Mary, while, at his best, he approaches Holbein in the 
clearness and harmony of his colours. One of the most beautiful 
portraits is the half-length picture of the Burgomaster Johannes 
von Ryht, in Berlin Gallery, which was painted in 1525. The head 
is given with fine detachment, the thoughtful eyes, the firm mouth, 
all the expressive features which reveal the whole character of the 
man are presented with fidelity yet without any smallness, hardness 
or over-emphasis of details. The materials in the garments with 
their fur linings are well painted; the colouring is harmonious. 
Another remarkably fine portrait is that, in Cologne Gallery, of 
Burgomaster Arnold of Brauweiler, painted in 1535. 

With Barthel Bruyn worked his two sons, Arnt and Barthel 
the Younger. In 1543 Hermann von Weinsberg wrote: "Barthel 
Bruyn is the first painter in the city, and after him his sons." Arnt 
Bruyn was a member of the City Council from 1565 to 1577 and was 
succeeded in office by his brother Barthel. It has so far been 
impossible to assign works definitely to these two artists. 

A painter who was born in Worms but who set up his studio in 
Cologne was Anton Woensam, son of a painter Jasper Woensam, 
who seems to have had considerable fame in his day, as all the honours 
in the gift of the Painters' Guild were conferred on him. No authen- 
tic pictures, however, remain to us from his hand. Nor have many 
of his son Anton's been preserved. One of the most characteristic 
is the " Christ on the Cross," in Cologne Gallery, which was painted in 
1535 for the Carthusian monks. At the foot of the cross kneels 
Peter Bloemvenna, abbot of the monastery; below, to the left, are 
his parents and sisters and brothers; to the right, his grandparents, 
an uncle and three aunts. To the left of the cross stand the Virgin, 
St. John and St. Peter; to the right, the saints of the Carthusian 



80 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART 

order, Bruno, Hugo of Grenoble and Hugo of Lincoln. The body 
of Christ is quite muscular and its bony structure prominent. The 
other figures are slender, their garments of heavy materials. The 
kneeling and standing people are arranged with considerable monot- 
ony in regular rows, but the heads of the various members of the 
abbot's family are strongly individualised; indeed, the kneeling men 
are evidently done from life, and the portraits are not flattering. 
The background is a landscape with mountains, cities and a lake; 
the sky is filled with clouds. 

A contemporary of Anton Woensam's in Cologne was Master 
Hildegard, who, in 1523, painted, quite in the manner of the Flemish 
artists, an altar for the Catholic Church in Dortmund with scenes 
from the Life of the Virgin. 

Of Hans von Melem only one authentic work remains — a portrait 
of himself at thirty-seven years of age, which is in Munich Pinakothek. 

A Cologne artist who wandered to Nuremberg to study with 
Diirer, was Jacob Bink, whose fame rests rather on his engravings 
than on his paintings. During the latter half of his life he was in 
the service of King Christian III of Denmark and of Duke Albert of 
Prussia, as architect, sculptor and painter. Of paintings from his 
hand there remain to us only portraits — as those of King Christian 
III and his Queen, in Copenhagen, and of Duke Albert and his wife, 
in Konigsberg. 

The study of the art of Cologne brings a measure of disappoint- 
ment. It did not develop in steady progression to culminate in the 
XVI century in masters of the greatness of Diirer and Holbein. 
Instead, after the middle of the XV century it fell wholly under the 
domination of the art of the Netherlands, to which its individuality 
was subordinated to such a degree that it is with difficulty that 
the works of Cologne artists can be distinguished from those of 
painters in the Netherlands. Such an imitative art could possess 
within itself no vital element that would grow, develop and finally 
bring forth, in the fulness of its strength, such masterpieces of 
original creative genius as were the fullest expressions of the art 
of Augsburg and Nuremberg. In truth, the art of Cologne reached 
its zenith in the first half of the XV century, in the works of 
Stephan Lochner. 



CHAPTER X 

WESTPHALIAN PAINTERS 

Master Conrad Stollen — Master of Liesborn — N. Suelnmeigr — Johann Koer- 
becke — Gert Von Lon — Heinrich and Victor Diinwegge — blaster of Cappen- 
berg — Heinrich Aldegrever — The Tom Ring Family 

IN Westphalia the wealthy old Hanseatic town of Soest was the 
earliest centre of art activity, bringing forth in Conrad Stollen 
a painter who occupies the same position in the art of West- 
phalia as the Master of the St. Clara Altar in the art of the first 
half of the XV century in Cologne. Master Conrad is mentioned 
as priest in Nieder-Wildungen in 1403; his altar in the chinch there 
is dated 1404. On the outside of each of the two wings are two saints, 
on the inside, four scenes from the youth of Christ and five scenes from 
his Passion. The figures are very slender, with narrow shoulders, 
weak limbs and poorly modelled hands and feet. The oval of the 
faces is sharp, the chins are quite long and pointed. These people 
are not lacking, however, in the charm of delicacy and refinement 
or in a certain appealing quality of youth and frailty. The colours 
are quite bright and gay but less agreeably harmonised than in the 
works of the early Cologne masters; the flesh tones are browner. 
The crowns and halos are made of gilded plaster of Paris and are 
apt to stand out so conspicuously as to seem more important than 
the people who wear them. 

A later work of Master Conrad's, and his masterpiece, is the 
altar of St. Nicholas' Chapel, Soest, which is now kept in the Deanery. 
It presents St. Nicholas enthroned, with four other saints, the donor 
and his family. The bodies are lacking in constructive framework, 
the heads too heavy for the slender throats; the foreheads are ex- 
tremely high, the blond hair hangs in heavy braids. 

In the church in Warendorf is a Crucifixion by Master Conrad, 
dated 1414, in which the body of Christ is beautiful in fine, though 
evidently not modelled with any knowledge of anatomy. The 
monstrously ugly tormentors of Christ are astonishingly natural 
and expressive in their attitudes and movements. 

81 



82 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART 

The altar presented by Abbess Segele of Hamme, sometime 
between 1410 and 1422, to the church in Frondenberg, on which 
are represented scenes from the Life of the Virgin, suggests contact 
with the School of Cologne and the influence of the Master of the 
Madonna with the Bean Blossom, whose types the Mary and Eliza- 
beth of the Frondenberg altar closely resemble. Westphalian art 
shows from the beginning a more pronounced realistic tendency than 
the art of Cologne; its colouring is gayer and less harmonious and 
it displays always a marked fondness for magnificent robes em- 
broidered with flowers, and for ornamentation in general. 

In 1465 Abbot Heinrich von Cleve consecrated in the church 
at Liesborn, near Miinster, a High Altar and four chapel altars of 
which the chronicler wrote: "The altars he consecrated were bril- 
liant with gold and beautiful colours, so that their artist would, accord- 
ing to the canons of Pliny, have been accounted by the Greeks a 
master of the first rank/' The artist's name we do not yet know, 
but he is called from these works for the cloister, the Master of 
Liesborn. 

These altars were sold and cut in pieces in 1807 when the mon- 
astery was secularised and Westphalia created a kingdom for Jerome 
Bonaparte. There remain to us therefore only broken sections; in 
Miinster an angel from "The Crucifixion," bearing a chalice, and five 
angels adoring the Child; in the National Gallery, London, the head of 
the Crucified and six saints; besides some section's in private col- 
lections. 

The faces of the people in the pictures by the Master of Liesborn 
are squarer in outline than Master Conrad's people; the eyes are large 
and slightly almond-shaped, the mouth nobly curved, the hair soft and 
treated with great minuteness. The angels wear white robes and long 
blue mantles; their wings are many-coloured. All his people seem to 
combat a slight embarrassment or a retiring modesty which rather 
adds to their charm than detracts from it. That the master had 
come into touch with the art of the Netherlands and had learned 
from it, is manifest from the knowledge of perspective shown in the 
interior of the room in which are the angels, in "The Nativity," and 
from the medium used, which, though partly tempera, is also partly 
oils. 







Photograph by Dr. Stoedtner, Berlin 

CONRAD STOLLEN VON SOEST 
Saints Ottilie and Dorothea 
westphalian museum, munsteb 




Photograph by F. Bruckmann A-G, Munich 



MASTER OF LIESBORN 

Angel Holding a Chalice 

westphalian museum, munster 



WESTPHALIAN PAINTERS 83 

In the decade after the Master of Liesbom the universal move- 
ment toward realism made itself felt in Westphalian art and domi- 
nated most disagreeably the work of a painter who signed himself 
N. Suelnmeigr. In his " Holy Night," in Mlinster Gallery, the people 
are unbeautiful and common-looking though robed in rich brocades; 
in his other four pictures in the Gallery the martyrdoms of Saints 
Stephen, Clement, Pantaleone and Lawrence are depicted with 
coarse and violent realism. The altar in the Wiesenkirche in Soest, 
which presents the Holy Family and scenes from the lives of Christ 
and the Virgin, was, in all probability, from the hand of this painter. 
The figures are large-boned, with unlovely features; the brilliantly 
coloured garments are laid in many, broken folds; the colours are 
vigorous and not particularly harmonious. The whole impression 
given is that of the sacrifice of beauty in a struggle for truth to 
nature. 

Another leader in the movement toward excessive faithfulness 
to nature was Johann Koerbccke, who is mentioned in the archives 
of Miinster in the years from 1446 to 1491. Several works from his 
hand are in the Gallery there and all represent scenes from the 
Passion, which offer full scope to his drastic realism. Nor is the 
gloom of the pictures relieved by the colouring, which is dark and 
heavy even in the flesh tones. 

A painter who belonged in point of time to the XVI century 
but in the character of his work to the period of transition from the 
Master of Liesbom to the realists, was Gert von Lon. In the records 
of Cloister Willebadessen we read that, in 1505, the nuns commis- 
sioned him to paint for them a High Altar for which he was to re- 
ceive forty gold guldens. One wing of this altar is now in Miinster 
Gallery; it contains the Resurrection, Ascension, Descent of the 
Holy Ghost and Saints. Gert von Lon's chief work is the altar 
in the Wiesenkirche in Soest which was long attributed to Alde- 
grever. The shrine contains wood carvings; on the wings are the 
Holy Night, Adoration of the Kings, St. Anthony and St. Agatha; 
on the base are half-length figures of the apostles. The scenes are 
laid in Renaissance rooms; the people, although so sharply charac- 
terised that they might have been done from life, are, in the main, 



84 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART 

unattractive; their features are unbeautiful, their bodies long and 
thin and their poses stiff and affected. 

The distinguishing characteristics of Westphalian art — sturdi- 
ness of type, a leaning toward realism, fondness for gay colour- 
ing, for gorgeous robes and for ornamentation with gold thickly 
and pastily applied — persisted even into the XVI century. 
In its opening years Dortmund was the centre of artistic ac- 
tivity. There two brothers, Heinrich and Victor Diinwegge, 
painted, in 1521, the High Altar for the Dominican Church. On the 
central section is the Crucifixion, on the inner sides of the wings the 
Holy Family and Adoration of the Kings; on the outer sides eight 
saints of the Dominican order, who stand in front of a tapestry, be- 
hind which, through a late Gothic arcade, we are given a glimpse of a 
landscape. The composition is crowded and not clealy grouped, the 
women are in appearance large and dignified, but unmistakably shal- 
low and insincere; the men are strong almost to roughness; the gar- 
ments are gaily patterned. Almost all pictures by these prolific paint- 
ers give an impression of overcrowding, which is heightened by the use 
of many light colours which are not brought into harmony. 

A master whose style is so similar to that of the brothers Diin- 
wegge that some authorities believe him to be identical with one of 
them, is the Master of Cappenberg, of whom it is known that he 
worked in the years between 1500 and 1525 and who received his 
name from the altar, with the Crucifixion as its chief subject, which 
is in the church at Cappenberg. 

To Soest, however, that earnest centre of the art life of West- 
phalia, belonged the best known Westphalian painter of the XVI 
century, Heinrich Aldegrever. He was born in Paderborn, in 1502, 
but moved in his youth to Soest where he had become a famous 
artist before 1530. He died about 1560. 

Aldegrever was not only a painter but practised the art of the 
goldsmith and of the engraver as well, developing as an engraver 
under the very marked influence of Diirer. As a painter his fame 
rests on his portraits, which are well-modelled, clean and definite 
in drawing, while his types are patrician, marked by simplicity 
and dignity of bearing. 

In Minister the family Tom Ring was prominent in art in the 




Photograph by Franz Hanfstaengl 



HEINRICH ALDEGREVER 

Portrait of a Young Man 

lichtexstein gallery, vienna 



WESTPHALIAN PAINTERS 85 

XVI century. At its head was Ludger torn Ring the Elder (1497 
-1547) who was widely known as a painter and architect. An altar 
painted by him in 1538 in Miinster Cathedral is not particularly 
interesting or important. His chief talent was as a portrait apinter. 
His portraits are rather stiff and set, but dignified, definite in model- 
ling and clear in colour. He gave the external appearance without 
any revelation of the nature, character or attainments of his sub- 
jects; a procedure which created a singular resemblance to one 
another in all the people he painted, as is the case also in many of 
the representations by such artists as Sir Peter Lely, Kneller and 
others who at various times have adopted this same standard in 
portraiture. 

Ludger torn Ring had two sons who also were painters. The 
elder, Hermann, was born in Miinster in 1521, studied with his 
father, then came under the influence of the Italianised School of 
the Netherlands, especially of Heemskerk. In 1568 he became 
Master of the Guild in Miinster; he died in 1597. The younger 
son, Ludger, who was born in 1522, spent most of his active life in 
Brunswick, where he died in 1583 or 1584. The flesh tones in his 
portraits are very light and all his people are invested with a rather 
wooden appearance of dignity. 

Nicholas, son of Hermann torn Ring, born 1564 in Miinster, 
continued the family name and fame into the XVII century, as he 
was active as late as 1613. His work cannot be said to be in any 
sense German, but is in everything imitation Italian. 



CHAPTER XI 

SAXONY 

LUCAS CRANACH 

THE greatest painter in Saxony, Lucas Cranach, was not a Saxon 
by birth but was born in 1472, at Cronach in Franconia, whence 
he received his name. Concerning his family name there 
is still, however, much difference of opinion, some historians insist- 
ing that it was Miiller, others holding out for Sunder. Of his life be- 
fore 1504 we know nothing, but he must have gained a wide reputation, 
for in that year he was appointed Court Painter to the Saxon Elector 
Frederick the Wise and went to live in Wittenberg. Four years 
later a coat-of-arms — the winged serpent which in his pictures takes 
the place of the usual monogram signature — was conferred upon 
him, in acknowledgment, not only of the greatness of his art, but 
of his services to the Electoral House. The next year, 1509, he was 
sent as special ambassador to the Netherlands to represent Saxony 
at the festivities in honour of Charles of Spain, the grandson of the 
Emperor Maximilian. In 1513 he bought a handsome house in 
Wittenberg, having, some time previously, married Barbara Breng- 
bier, daughter of a patrician of Gotha. He acquired an apothecary 
shop and later a book store. In 1519 he was elected City Treasurer, 
in 1537 and again in 1540, Burgomaster. 

From the beginning he was a warm friend of Luther's and did 
everything in his power to promote his cause. He was one of the 
witnesses at Luther's marriage, caricatured his enemies in a series 
of woodcuts, painted pictures and made drawings for woodcuts which 
would illustrate and illuminate Luther's teachings. Luther, in 
turn, was god-father to one of his children and his comforter when 
his gifted son, Johann Lucas, died suddenly, in 1537, at Bologna, 
whither he had gone to pursue his art studies. 

Loyal as he was to Luther, he was just as faithful to the princely 
house he served. When in 1547 Elector Johann Friedrich suffered 
defeat and faced imprisonment, Cranach made intercession for him 






LUCAS CRANACH 87 

with Charles V and when this failed of effect, followed the Elector 
to prison in Augsburg and in Innsbruck, remaining with him until 
he was set at liberty in 1552. Then, together still, they went to 
Weimar, where Cranach died in 1553 at the age of eighty-one. He 
left two daughters and a son, Lucas Cranach the younger. His 
wife had died twelve years before. 

Dr. Christopher Scheurl, the famous humanist, "the Oracle 
of the Republic," in his festival speech delivered in 1508 in the 
Stiftskirche which Frederick the Wise had founded in Wittenberg, 
referred to Cranach as one who worked "more rapidly than any other 
painter and who was never idle, not so much as a single hour, but 
always had a brush in his hand." And truly this account of his 
facility and industry must have been literally true, for Cranach 
has left to us an enormous body of work, comprising pictures with 
religious and allegorical subjects, portraits and drawings for wood- 
cuts. It must be remembered, however, that in his later years he 
had gathered a school about him, and also that he was greatly occu- 
pied with business, religion and politics — matters which must have 
consumed much time. It is therefore highly probable that the busy 
artist left many of the commissions to be executed, in the main, by 
his students and helpers; so that many of the works attributed to 
the master himself, are but school pictures in his manner. Gradu- 
ally these are being sifted out and a more just appreciation of the 
master is becoming possible. 

In his art Cranach belongs wholly to Saxony and the School 
of Cologne, and not in any degree to the intensely dramatic school 
of his native Franconia. While in his landscapes, trees and light- 
ing, the influence of Griinewald and Altdorfer is often directly evi- 
dent, in his types and atmosphere he is closely akin to the earliest 
Cologne masters. His women, with the high forehead, small mouth, 
short chin and the softly rounded contour of the face are not dis- 
similar in type to theirs, and, though more worldly, as befits the 
XVI century, they possess the same unpractical, dreamy natures. 
In no other types in art except in the School of Cologne in the XV 
century is there such utter lack of self-consciousness as in Cranach's 
women, whether Christian saints or pagan goddesses, heroines of 
Old Testament history or of classical mythology. He presents them 



88 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART 

often in a guise which conception and treatment might easily make 
anatomical or vulgar or even lewd; but they are so wholly unconscious 
of themselves that they simply provoke the amused, indulgent, 
half-tender smile which would be called up by the absurd posturings 
or antics of a winsome child. Sometimes, in his earlier religious 
works, this self-forgetfulness attains the dignity of devotional ab- 
sorption, as in the "Madonna and Child" in Munich Pinakothek; 
in his latest works (doubtless largely school pictures) it occasionally 
amounts to absurdity, in such scenes as Judith nonchalantly holding 
the severed head of Holofernes, or Lucretia vacantly or lackadaisi- 
cally stabbing herself. 

As has been said above, nothing is definitely known of the life 
and work of Lucas Cranach before he went to Wittenberg in 1504. 
Scheibler assigns to him as early works an interesting series of 
pictures in the castle of Aschaffenburg done in a manner so similar 
to Matthaus Grilnewald's that, in lieu of more authoritative attribu- 
tion, they have been hitherto attributed vaguely to " Pseudo-Grilne- 
wald."* There is, however, no conclusive proof of Cranach's author- 
ship of the works in Aschaffenburg. 

Cranach's earliest signed picture is the one in Berlin Gallery, 
dated 1504, which represents the Rest on the Flight into Egypt. 
The Virgin is seated beside a rocky hill, under the shade of a moss- 
hung, evergreen tree such as we meet with in the landscapes of 
Griinewald or Altdorfer. A varied landscape opens up in the back- 
ground. Behind the Virgin stands Joseph, hat and staff in hand, 
looking out directly at the spectator with keen glance. Among the 
flowers that bloom all about them are small and busy angels. One 
gives the Christ Child fruits and blossoms, one plays with a bird 
he holds by the wings, two make soft music on their flutes, one sleeps 
beside a tiny waterfall at which another fills a jar, doubtless in pre- 
paration for the journey. The scene is very much alive, the atmos- 
phere inviting and full of tender charm, the colour glowing. 

For several years after this date, woodcuts are the artist's only 
traceable works; perhaps the Aschaffenburg pictures occupied him 
during this period. The woodcuts present St. George, Venus and 
Amor, St. Mary Magdalen, the Temptation of St. Anthony, 1508, 

* See Pseudo-Griinewald, page 114. 




Photograph by From Hanfstaengl 



LUCAS CRAXACH 

Rest ox the Flight into Egypt 
kaiser friedrich museum, berlin 




LUCAS CRANACH 

The Crucifixion, with Cbanach and Luther 

stadtpfarrkirc'he, weimar 



LUCAS CRANACH 89 

the Judgment of Paris, 1509, St. Jerome in a landscape, and many 
other subjects. 

'With 1509 begins again the record of his paintings. A Venus 
and Amor bearing this date is in the Hermitage Gallery, St. Peters- 
burg, and is signed with the initials L. C. and the small winged 
serpent from his coat-of-arms, with which Cranach was accustomed 
to sign his works. The modelling is strong yet delicate, the colour 
rich and harmonious. 

From the years between 1512 and 1518 date a number of Ma- 
donna pictures, as the "Madonna in an Arbour" and the "Madonna 
under an Apple Tree," in the Hermitage Gallery, St. Petersburg, and 
the "Madonna and Child" with a bunch of grapes, with two angels 
holding a purple drapery as background, in Munich Pinakothek. 
One of the most beautiful of all the Madonna pictures is that 
in St. James' Church in Innsbruck painted about 1517, in which the 
Virgin is altogether lovely, the Child full of life and very lovable, 
the colouring glowing yet soft and harmonious. Next in beauty 
rank, perhaps, the two Madonna pictures in the Darmstadt and 
Carlsruhe Galleries. In Weimar, the smiling Madonna, painted in 
1518, is seated in a landscape of rare beauty. Of less charm is the 
Virgin and Child in front of a green hanging, in the Stadel Art In- 
stitute in Frankfort. 

From 1518 dates the curious picture in Leipsic Gallery, repre- 
senting a death-bed scene and painted as an Epitaph of the physician 
Valentine Schmidburg, who died in 1490. The dying man, naked, 
is propped up in bed; a priest holds crucifix and candle before his 
eyes, while good and evil spirits struggle for his soul. Beside the 
bed are the man's wife, kneeling in prayer, his physician holding 
a flask, a notary writing his last will and testament, and an executor 
who is examining his coffers and strong-boxes in order to ascertain 
the extent of the worldly possessions he is leaving behind. Above 
the good and bad angels who hover over the bed, passes the soul 
which is being carried aloft to the Trinity; above that again are the 
Virgin and Child and a small church before which kneels a family 
of five; aroimd this section are written the words of the epitaph. 

In 1515 Cranach was invited to join the company of famous 
artists who were illustrating Emperor Maximilian's Prayerbook. 



90 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART 

Eight pages in the section now in Munich were decorated by him with 
drawings which might almost be said to be animal pictures, from the 
extent to which animals predominate in the compositions. Cranach, 
indeed, possessed great fame as a painter of animals. In that lauda- 
tory speech he delivered in 1508, Dr. Scheurl had spoken of his 
being able to paint stags "that are so natural that strange hounds 
bark when they see them." In the Emperor's Prayerbook he drew, 
in reddish-brown ink, stags, rabbits, monkeys and herons, without 
any religious significance, save on one page where the Church's 
chariot is drawn by the beasts which are the symbols of the four 
evangelists. 

As has been already noted, Cranach 's pictures fail to reveal any 
development of his art in his later years. Indeed after 1520 his 
mannerisms became so pronounced that the numerous pictures painted 
between 1525 and 1550 all reveal the same characteristics and show 
such a marked similarity that any detailed consideration would be 
wearisome and fruitless. Possibly much of the work on these pic- 
tures was done by pupils, while, in the case of the master himself, 
doubtless that remarkable facility of which Scheurl spoke in 1508 
had increased to such a degree that in these busy years he simply 
turned out " typical" pictures without any particular expenditure of 
either thought or time. 

To the beginning of this period, 1525, belongs the "St. Mary 
Magdalen" in Cologne Museum, with stags and other animals intro- 
duced in the landscape. A half-dozen pictures of Adam and Eve 
painted between 1525 and 1533 also gave the artist opportunity to 
exercise his gift for painting animals, as he could freely introduce any 
number of them in the Garden of Eden. 

Of Biblical figures the favorites, besides Adam and Eve, were 
Judith, who is conceived as a mild young woman holding the head 
of Holofernes as she might a fan, Samson and Delilah and Salome. 
More dignified and serious is the Adulteress before Christ in the 
picture in Munich Pinakothek, who, in the handsome dress of the 
period, stands before the Christ, incapable, it is true, of deep peni- 
tence, yet soberly thoughtful. The Christ type is beautiful and not 
without nobility and dignity in spite of the ringleted hair, which im- 
parts a slight air of effeminacy. The Pharisees are characterised to 



LUCAS CRANACH 91 

the point of caricature, especially the man in armour with his cap 
full of stones, and the huge, monkish-looking man at the left who 
is adjusting his eyeglasses with a supercilious air and who is so 
large that he disturbs the proportions of the picture. Another 
Biblical subject to which Cranach was partial was "Christ blessing 
Little Children." A beautiful picture with this subject is in Naurn- 
burg, another in the Paulinerkirche, Leipsic, a third in St. Anna's 
Church, Augsburg. 

But pleasant and beautiful subjects did not by any means mon- 
opolise his attention. Christ as the Man of Sorrows he pictured 
many times, the most dignified and sincere representation being 
that in the Cathedral in Meissen, which was painted in 1534. A 
series of three scenes from the Passion is in Berlin Gallery; six others 
are in the Old Palace. Of special interest among these Passion 
scenes are those which were directly inspired by Cranach 's contact 
with Martin Luther and his faith in the new Evangel which set 
forth the victory of the testament of Christ's blood over the old 
law. In Weimar Museum is a picture which illustrates the teach- 
ings of the great reformer. On the left, as symbolic of the old 
dispensation, are Death and the Devil chasing Adam into hell, 
while Moses and the prophets look on helplessly; on the right 
are Christ on the Cross, and John the Baptist explaining to 
Adam the means of redemption, in which he becomes a sharer 
through the blood which gushes visibly from Christ's bleeding heart 
upon his head. Another treatment of this theme which presents 
it pointedly as an illustration of Luther 's teachings, is in the Stadt- 
pfarrkirche in Weimar. In the centre is Christ on the Cross; 
in the background, the tents of the Israelites and the symbolic 
brazen serpent, in the middle distance Moses with the tables of the 
law and Death and the Devil driving mankind into hell. At the 
left of the Cross, Christ descends into hell to bind the old dragon 
and bring mankind again from the dead; at the right stand John the 
Baptist, the artist Cranach himself, upon whose head blood gushes 
from the pierced side of Christ, and Martin Luther holding his open 
Bible and pointing to the words "The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth 
us from all sin." The portrait of the artist at the foot of the cross is 
life-like, and that of Luther the best we have of him from Cranach 's 



92 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART 

hand. In the Stadtkirche in Wittenberg is yet another "Luther" 
altar (largely pupils' work, however), which represents in the central 
picture the Last Supper; on the wings, Confession, with Bugenhagen 
as Father Confessor, and Baptism with Melanchthon as priest; on 
the predella, Luther preaching, with, as his theme, the Crucifixion. 

But the subjects of Cranach's pictures are not all religious; 
his secular pictures are even more numerous. Favoured among pro- 
fane themes are the stories of classical mythology, which are, how- 
ever, by no means interpreted in the classic spirit or presented in 
the classic manner, but are, rather, representations of nude Arcadian 
heroes and heroines who, in their childish naivete", are not with- 
out winsomeness, though some of them are but slightly removed from 
being travesties of the dignified scenes to which we are accustomed 
in classical art. The favourite subject, naturally, is Venus, who is 
presented again and again. The Judgment of Paris also appeals to 
the artist's imagination. Paris, a rather unimpressive looking, short, 
young man, very handsomely dressed, or in full armour, gazes in 
stupefaction at the beauty of the three goddesses, who are indeed 
childishly winning in their gauze veils and gold chains. Diana, 
alone or with Apollo, is a subject which encourages the introduction 
of beautiful landscapes with animals. A very lovely landscape is 
the setting for a charming picture of a faun family, in Donau- 
eschingen Gallery. 

Of all the allegorical pictures the best known is the "Fountain 
of Youth," in Berlin Gallery, which has unfortunately undergone a 
thorough restoration. In the middle of a great park is the fountain 
over which Venus is presiding deity. To it have come all sorts of 
women, crippled, homely and old, on foot or in the conveyances which 
are left standing close at hand. Very swiftly they are disrobing and 
plunging into the wonder-working water, to climb out on the other 
side young, fresh and beautiful, to robe in the near-by tents and 
then give themselves up to the pleasures of youth, dancing, feast- 
ing and loving. It is a fairy tale told with much of the charm 
of the Wonder- World and yet not without a strongly humorous 
element. 

Akin to the master's mythological and allegorical pictures are 
his hunting scenes, as the "Stag Hunt," of 1529, in the Burg at Prague, 




Photograph by F. Bruckmann A-G, Munich 



LUCAS CRAXACH 

The Judgment of Paris 

grand ducal gallery, carlsruhe 



LUCAS CRANACH 93 

two Hunting Scenes from 154-1 in the Prado, Madrid, and others. 
The Hunt with Emperor Charles V as guest, in Vienna Gallery, is 
largely a school picture. 

Exceedingly numerous, too, are the portraits painted by Cran- 
ach. As a usual thing, he gives his subjects simply and directly, 
without profoimd insight, yet with sincerity and lifelikeness and 
with attractive colouring. As might be expected, many of his portraits 
present princes to whom he was court painter. Especially numerous 
are those of Frederick the Wise with the broad, short head on the 
thick, short neck, the stubby beard, low forehead and small eyes. 
Of Johann I a good portrait is in Weimar Museum, as also one of 
Johann Friederich as bridegroom, painted in 1526, with a companion 
picture of his betrothed, Sybil of Cleves. There are also from his 
hand several portraits of Cardinal Albrecht of Brandenburg, in one 
of which, in Darmstadt Gallery, painted in 1525, the cardinal is rep- 
resented as St. Jerome in his study surrounded by books and other 
accessories; in another, in Berlin Gallery, painted two years later, 
as St. Jerome in a forest landscape surrounded by wild animals and 
writing on a board supported by the trunk of a tree. 

Another interesting group of portraits is that one which has 
as its centre the Apostle of the Reformation. Cranach painted 
in 1527 the portraits of Luther's parents which are in the Wart- 
burg; and at various times, several of his wife Katherine Bora, and 
many of Luther himself. 

A portrait of the artist by himself, dated 1550, is in the Uffizi 
Gallery, Florence. 

Cranach has been called the Hans Sachs of painting and in the 
many years of productive activity and the enormous quantity of 
work turned out, in a certain lack of profundity, a certain super- 
ficiality of characterisation and in the hasty, "mannered" execution 
of his work, he does resemble the great Mastersinger. The painter 
possesses, however, a much higher degree of aesthetic culture, greater 
depth and finer poetic sense. 



CHAPTER XII 

SAXONY 

MINOR PAINTERS 

Hans Raphon — Hans Krell— Hans Brosamer — Lucas Cranaeh the Younger — 
Wolfgang Krodel — Peter Roddelstadt Gothland— Heinrich Konigsweiser — 
Matthias Krodel 

TIE most original of the minor artists in Saxony was Johannes 
Rap-Hon, called Hans Raphon, of Einbeck, about whose 
works much controversy is still being waged. In the Pro- 
vincial Museum in Hanover are two small, authentic altars from 
his hand which came there from the cloisters of St. Alexander and 
St. Mary the Virgin in Einbeck. Each is in the form of a triptych 
with coloured wood-carvings of the Virgin in the shrine and paintings 
of saints on the wings. The figures are exceptionally sturdy and ro- 
bust, the faces round and full, the flesh tones reddish with dark shad- 
ows. The saints are not invested with distinct personalities, though 
the artist evidently sought to convey lifelikeness by his care in re- 
cording such details as the many wrinkles on the faces and hands of 
the older people. The finish of the pictures is hard and shiny. 

To this master was formerly attributed an altar-piece in Bruns- 
wick Gallery representing the Mocking of Christ, Ecce Homo, the 
Virgin standing on the Half Moon, and three clerical donors, with, 
on the outside of the wings, a most curious picture of the Annuncia- 
tion or Immaculate Conception. It is doubtful if this altar-piece 
is by the painter of the Hanover pictures, though certainly from the 
same hand as the altar representing the Annunciation, Baptism, 
Adoration, and Revelation to St. John, which is attributed to Hans 
Raphon, in Hildesheim Gallery. 

In the Brunswick altar the picture which is most interesting — 
though iconographically rather than artistically — is "The Annuncia- 
tion" which is here presented in connection with the Immaculate Con- 
ception in a composition which is most rare in altar pictures though 
more frequent in embroidered altar cloths of the XV century. In 

94 






MINOR PAINTERS OF SAXONY 95 

the Archiepiscopal Museum in Cologne is one of these embroideries, 
which contains almost the identical representation with that on 
Hans Raphon's (?) Brunswick altar. 

In a garden surrounded in part by high walls, in part by a plaited 
willow fence, the Virgin sits among the flowers — "My Beloved is a 
garden enclosed." All about her are symbols of the Immaculate 
Conception: Aaron's Rod that budded, Gideon's Fleece, a pail of 
golden Manna, the Burning Bush. Within the garden a fountain 
of living water is playing; on an altar rests the Ark of the Covenant. 
In one of the great gates of the wall stands Ezekiel to whom had 
been vouchsafed the vision of the New Jerusalem; in another, 
David, the royal ancestor of the Virgin. From the left the Angel 
Gabriel comes hastening, blowing from a large horn the message 
"Ave gratia plena" and driving the four dogs, Truth, Peace, Mercy 
and Justice, fleeing before whom the unicorn — symbol of Jesus 
Christ — rushes into the lap of the Virgin. In the background is a 
wide landscape with trees and palms and an expanse of green water 
on which a boat is sailing. Above the water hangs the Star of David; 
over it arches the Rainbow of Promise, and out of it rises, in the 
form of a full, glorious sun, the Dawn of the New Dispensation. 
The whole is a curious combination of illustration of the Song of 
Songs, mystic symbolism and scholastic allegory and requires the 
introduction of many fluttering scrolls to make plain its meaning. 

The types in this, as in the other pictures attributed to this 
master, are tall, strong and vigorous; the faces are short, with large 
features, prominent eyes, round chins and muscular throats; the 
flesh tones are unbeautifully reddish. The Virgin has a very high 
forehead, her hair is parted and hangs in long, heavy waves; the other 
figures have low, broad foreheads and their red-blond hair, without 
parting, is laid in light curls. A distinctive characteristic of the 
painter is the way the light falling on the hair threads it with lines of 
brightest gold. 

The garments worn by the people are very full, the preferred 
colours red, white and green; blue, strangely enough, finds no place 
in the pictures. The wall and towers in "The Annunciation," like the 
many buildings introduced in his other pictures, are grey, with tiled 
roofs of the very same bright red that appears so frequently in the 



96 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART 

garments. The people move with much vigour but less grace; the 
wide landscapes and the views into the interiors of great halls reveal 
the artist's mastery of perspective. His pictures are usually dis- 
quieting from overcrowding with persons and things and from the 
lack of harmonisation of their bright colours. 

A later independent Saxon master was Hans Krell, called "The 
Princes' Painter of Leipsic," who, in the years between 1533 and 
1573, was head of a large workshop, in the direction of which he was 
succeeded by his son, Hans Krell the Younger. The elder Krell 
made drawings for wood cuts and painted portraits of his princes, 
as those of Elector August of Saxony and his wife Anna, 1551, in 
Dresden Gallery, Elector Johann Friedrich and his wife Sybilla, 
1534, in Leipsic City Library, and many others, which to-day seem 
but mediocre. 

A contemporary of Lucas Cranach's who imitated him very 
closely was Hans Brosamer, who lived from 1480 to 1550. His 
"Mother and Child," in Brunswick Gallery, is much like a Cranach 
picture in types and in dress, even to such accessories as the heavy 
chain with large links worn by the beautiful mother. The child, 
who is very large and stout and strong, wears a gauze dress and is 
most amazingly decked out with a chain of corals to which jewelled 
pendants are attached and a golden crown curiously plaited and 
thickly set with pearls. Several portraits by this artist are in various 
galleries, as that of Wolfgang Eisen, in Carlsruhe, painted in 1523, 
and that one dated 1538, in Hamburg Gallery, of a young man 
of twenty-one years, who is characterised by the annotation made 
on the picture "Forma bonum fragile." Hans Brosamer was also 
active as an engraver, and maker of woodcuts. 

The other Saxon painters of reputation in the XVI century were, 
apparently without exception, pupils of Lucas Cranach. His own most 
gifted son, Johannes Lucas, who died at Bologna in 1537, left, so far 
as is known, no works from which we might justify the great esteem 
in which he seems to have been held as an artist. Flechsig has 
attributed to him — it seems to me with reason and justice — the so- 
called Pseudo-Grunewalds in Aschaffenburg Castle. 

The second son, Lucas Cranach the Younger, who was born 
in Wittenberg in 1515 and died in Weimar in 1586, succeeded his 




HAXS RAPHOX 

Annunciation with Symbols of the Immaculate Conception 
ducal museum, brunswick 




Courtesy of the Ehrich Gallery, -Ycic York 

MASTER OF FRANKFORT 

Virgin and Child with St. Anna 



MINOR PAINTERS OF SAXONY 97 

father in the favour of the Elector and in his official positions in the 
city. His chief work is "The Preaching of St. John," painted in 1549, 
and now in Brunswick Museum, which in type and composition is 
very similar to his father's works but is softer in colouring, with 
pinker flesh tones. 

The younger Lucas was also a passionate adherent of Luther 
and painted several pictures in which the great reformer is glorified 
or his teachings illustrated. So in "The Vineyard of the Lord," 
painted in 1569 for the Stadtkirche in Wittenberg, the monks and 
priests are pictured destroying the precious grain, while Luther and 
his followers are planting the good seed. 

Religious pictures did not claim his interest wholly, but, like his 
father, he also painted allegorical and mythological scenes. The 
"Sleeping Hercules in the Forest teased by the Pygmies," and the 
"Awakened Hercules chasing off the Pygmies," in Berlin Gallery, 
are veritable fairy tales, though the types are rather more ordinary 
and less attractive than those of the elder Lucas. 

His best work, however, was done as a portrait painter. Among 
his portraits of his princely patrons the most interesting are those, 
in Dresden Gallery, presenting the Elector Maurice of Saxony and 
his wife Agnes, Elector Maurice alone, and Elector August. Of 
Luther he painted several fine portraits, among them those in Sch- 
werin Museum, painted in 1546, and the half-length portrait in 
Weimar Museum. The picture of Melanchthon on his death-bed, 
in Dresden Gallery, was formerly attributed to him, but is now con- 
sidered the work of a helper or pupil in his school. Especially fine 
and beautiful in colour is the portrait of Leonhard Badehorn, the 
lawyer and Rector of Leipsic University, in Berlin Gallery. From 
his hand are also the ten portraits of the famous Reformation leaders, 
done in water colours on a blue ground in the so-called "Stammbuch" 
in the Royal Library, Berlin, among them Luther, Melanchthon, 
Spalatin, Justin Jonas, Bugenhagen and Elector Johann Friedrich. 

A less important pupil of the elder Cranach was Wolfgang 
Krodel, from whose hand are two signed pictures in the Imperial 
Gallery, Vienna, "David and Bathsheba" and "Lot with his Daugh- 
ters," both from the year 1528. From the same year dates a "Last 



98 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART 

Judgment," in Dresden Gallery; from 1555, a "Judith," in Darmstadt. 
The types are coarser than Cranach's, the colouring paler. 

Another pupil, Peter Roddelstadt, who, because he came from 
Gothland was known as Peter Gothland, became court painter at 
Weimar in the year of his master's death in that city, 1553. In the 
Stadtkirche in Jena are three of his works: an altar-piece represent- 
ing Christ stilling the Storm at Sea and the Epitaphs of Professor 
Stoffel and Erhard Schnepsius. 

Then followed the pupils of the younger Lucas, who per- 
petuated the Cranach types and the Cranach traditions even into the 
XVII century. One of these, Heinrich Konigsweiser, who was study- 
ing with him in 1552, was a protege of Duke Albrecht of Branden- 
burg and was probably the "H. K." who painted the "Christ in 
Gethsemane," in Konigsberg. 

Another pupil was the portrait painter Matthias Krodel who 
was in the service of the Electors of Saxony from 1586 to 1591. 
From his hand is a portrait of an old man, in Dresden Gallery, 
which is signed M. K. 1591 and, in Brunswick Gallery, with the same 
signature, and dated 1570, a portrait of a man in a fur cap. 

But it is quite unnecessary to catalogue all the pupils of Lucas 
Cranach the Elder and the Younger. Their works speak for them 
in their conformity to type and marked similarity, and doubtless 
many of the weaker works in the Cranach manner attributed to 
Lucas the Elder himself are from the hands of some one or more of 
his many pupils. 



PART III 
SCHOOL OF SWABIA 



CHAPTER XIII 

THE MIDDLE RHINE 

THREE FRANKFORT MASTERS 

Master of Frankfort (Hans Fyol?) — Master of the House Book 
(Martin Hess?) — Hans Grimmer 

IN the beginning the schools of art which grew up in the cities 
of the Middle Rhine gave no hint that they were to differ mate- 
rially in their development and outcome from the School of 
Cologne. They started out with the same themes, the lives of Christ, 
the Virgin and the saints, but told their stories in a more matter of 
fact fashion than was possible to the devoted, mystic, early masters 
in Cologne. After the middle of the XV century they, too, fell for 
a time so wholly under the dominion of the art of the Nether- 
lands tli at even yet, occasionally, a work by an artist of that 
period is listed uncertainly as "Master from the Middle Rhine 
or the Netherlands." 

The earliest works remaining date from the first half of the XV 
century, and were painted by artists who are, for the most part, 
still nameless; as the Ortenberg Altar of 1410 and the Seligen- 
stadt Saints, 1420, in Darmstadt Gallery; the Holy Kinship Altar 
and the Crucifixion, 1420, in the Municipal Museum, Frankfort. 

By the second half of the century, the introduction of the 
landscape background, the attempts at scientific perspective, the 
use of oils, and even the types portrayed reveal unmistakably the 
influence of the art of the Netherlands. So marked is this influ- 
ence in the works of the so-called Master of Frankfort (Meister 
von Frankfurt) that some historians persist in believing him to 
be not a German but a Flemish artist. The chief works of this 
painter, whose pictures are to be seen in many galleries, are in 
Frankfort; hence his name. They are, in the Municipal Museum, 
an altar representing, in the central section the Holy Family, on 

101 



102 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART 

the wings the Birth and Death of the Virgin, and four saints; in 
the Stadel Institute, an altar containing the Crucifixion, two don- 
ors and their patron saints, and, on the outside, a corpse lying 
upon a bier. The types are not so pleasing as those in the pic- 
tures of his contemporaries in Cologne who were also imitating 
Dirk Bouts, Roger van der Weyden and Hans Memling; they are 
almost always plain-featured, solemn people, who go through life 
sodden and uninspired. This impression is unrelieved by the col- 
ouring, which is dark and heavy in spite of the free use of gold 
brocades and rich, jewelled passementeries in the garments. In 
the "Madonna and Child with St. Anna," in New York, the people 
sitting in the lovely landscape possess more buoyancy and respon- 
siveness than usual and are among his most attractive creations. 

Some historians have identified the Master of Frankfort with 
Conrad Fyol, a member of a well known Frankfort family of artists 
whose head, Sebald Fyol, in 1442 decorated the new council chamber 
in the Kdmer with frescoes which have since perished. His son Con- 
rad is listed as a painter in the archives of 1466 to 1498. Other 
authorities believe that the works of the Master of Frankfort were 
done at a later date than this and are inclined to identify him with 
Conrad's son Hans Fyol, who enjoyed considerable reputation 
in the opening years of the XVI century. 

A contemporary of the Master of Frankfort in the School of the 
Middle Rhine derived his name, "The Master of the House Book" 
(Meister des Hausbuches),* from his many engravings for the "house 
book" of Wolf egg Castle. Flechsig believes him to be identical with 
Nicholas Schriet, who painted the late Gothic altar in the parish 
Church in Wimpfen. Thode offers the very ingenious and plausible 
suggestion that he might be that Martin Hess who is mentioned in 
Durer's letter to Jacob Heller of Frankfort in 1509. Martin Hess 
was evidently the best painter in Frankfort at the time, since Diirer 
wished his patron to obtain his opinion of the artistic and commercial 
value of the great Heller Altar he had just sent off to him to Frank- 
fort. What more natural than to conclude that the most important 
works done at that period in Frankfort should be from the hand of 
her best-known artist! Moreover, in composition and in the land- 

* Known also as the "Master of the Amsterdam Cabinet." 



THE MIDDLE RHINE 103 

scapes introduced, the paintings and engravings by the Master of 
the House Book reveal an acquaintance with the works of Diirer; 
probably the Frankfort painter had studied with him, or had, at 
least, visited his workshop in Nuremberg, so that Diirer knew him 
personally — as Martin Hess? — before he advised Jacob Heller to 
consult him. 

The artist's chief works are a series of nine scenes from the Life 
of the Virgin in Mayence Gallery and an altar in Darmstadt repre- 
senting the Annunciation, Holy Night, Adoration and Presentation, 
with saints; works which reveal that, on the whole, the master was, 
like his contemporaries, following the artists of the Netherlands. 
His people are very plain, large-featured and unattractive; their 
garments are simple, the colouring rather bright, the flesh tones 
pink. 

In engraving, the Master of the House Book was the first to 
use the needle instead of the burin and obtained with it many new 
and beautiful effects. His subjects are varied, including not only 
sacred scenes but trivial happenings in everyday life. 

In the XVI century Hans Grimmer, a pupil of Griinewald, 
worked in Frankfort and Aschaffenburg. He painted both reli- 
gious pictures and portraits and won from Sandrart high enconiums 
as "in his time a famous painter who painted many good 
pictures." Few of them remain to us, however, beyond the por- 
traits in the Stadel Institute, Frankfort, and religious pictures 
and portraits in private collections. 



CHAPTER XIV 
THE MIDDLE RHINE 

MATTHAUS GRUNEWALD 

IN all this there was no hint that to the School of the Middle 
Rhine would be accredited a supreme genius in painting, one of 
the greatest colourists the world has ever known, Matthaus 
Griinewald. Unfortunately nothing is known about the course of 
his life. In all probability he was born in Aschaffenburg, near Frank- 
fort, about 1468, since in the earliest records he is called Matthes 
von Oschenburg — Matthew of Aschaffenburg. The chronicler Sand- 
rart is moved to express his regret at the absence of further details. 
"It is a great pity," he writes, "that this man with his works has 
been forgotten to such a degree that I do not know a living person 
who can furnish me the smallest writing relating to him or any in- 
formation by word of mouth. He lived for the most part in Mayence 
a solitary and melancholy life and was wretchedly unhappy in his 
marriage." He died in Colmar (?) after 1529. 

From whom he learned the elementary technique of his art 
we can have no idea, and indeed it is of no consequence. He stands 
with no antecedent in art, a great path-finder, a phenomenal genius, 
possessed of conceptions which he had not inherited or derived from 
any outside source, to which he gave expression in his art in a man- 
ner which he had never learned. There is indeed nothing in the 
history of art with which Griinewald 's visions of colour and light can 
even be compared. In the works of the other great masters of light, 
as Correggio, Tintoretto, Rembrandt, light is light; in Griinewald 's 
pictures it is colour made luminous. 

Yet in his earliest works he gives no sign of the direction of his 
genius. Greatness is there unmistakably; but it is not revealed in 
the colouring so much as in the close observation and realistic, ex- 
pressive presentation of the people he portrays. Of one of his 
early works, an altar for the Dominican Church in Frankfort which 
is now in the Municipal Museum there, the outer wings remain, 

104 




Photograph by F. Bruckmann A-G, Munich 

MATTHAUS GRUNEWALD 

Holy Night 

museum, colmar 




Photograph by Fram Hanfstaengl 

MATTHAUS GRUNEWALD 

Saints Erasmus and Maurice in Conversation 
alte pinakothek, munich 



MATTHAUS GRUNEWALD 105 

showing, in grey on grey, St. Lawrence with grill and book and St. 
Cyriacus beside whom stands a woman in great agony, about whose 
neck the saint holds a scarf. The bodies of the saints are short, 
full and muscular and are detached from the background almost as 
completely as if they were sculptured. Their very full garments 
are so instinct with life that it seems incredible that they are eter- 
nally static figures. 

The panel in Munich Pinakothek which presents St. Maurice 
the Moor, and St. Erasmus in conversation, was a commission from 
Cardinal Albrecht of Brandenburg for the Collegiate Church of St. 
Maurice and St. Mary Magdalen in Halle, which he built in 1518. 
The saints are given in heroic size; St. Maurice is in full armour, 
St. Erasmus wears golden robes and a large, high crown. Both are 
invested with halos as insignia of their sainthood. Accompanying 
St. Maurice are four warriors; beside St. Erasmus stands the head 
of the Chapter, in the delineation of whom Griinewald has given us a 
masterpiece of portraiture. The rugged old man in a red robe, with 
the stubby beard on his unshaven chin, and the squinting eyes, is 
given to the h'fe. He looks sharply, penetratingly out at us; we can 
almost hear the words that fall from the parted lips. 

But it was not until the painting of the altar-piece for the 
Cloister at Isenheim, in the Vosges, that Matthaus Griinewald re- 
vealed himself in the full power of his genius and gave to the world 
a work uniquely great. The altar-piece is now in sections in the 
Museum in Colmar where the student or traveller who will turn aside 
for its contemplation will receive undoubtedly the most powerful 
impression of tremendous forcefulness, imaginative insight and un- 
limited power of expression that he can receive from any one work of 
art. But it must be seen to make its full power felt; no words and 
no reproductions can convey anything of the marvel of its colour and 
light, of the unearthliness of its phantasy, the intoxicating ecstasy of 
its joyousness, the heart-gripping power of its tragedy. 

When the altar-piece is open, it is distinctly an altar-piece for 
the monastery, containing scenes from the life of its patron saint, 
St. Anthony. The shrine is filled with wood carving, which is, how- 
ever, not Griinewald 's work. In the centre sits St. Anthony, who 
is here, as in the pictures on the wings, really Guido Guersi, who was 



106 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART 

abbot of the cloister from 1493 to 1515. At his left stands St. Jerome 
with his lion; at his right St. Augustine, at whose feet kneels a for- 
mer abbot, Jean d'Orliac. On the predella, are, in half length, the 
carved figures of Christ and the twelve apostles. 

All the other scenes on the altar were painted by Griinewald. 
On either side of the central carved section, is a scene from the life 
of St. Anthony — to the right, the Temptation, to the left, the Con- 
versation with St. Paul the Hermit. To the right, in a landscape 
coldly lighted from a northern sky with many hurrying white clouds, 
the tall, bare rocks rising sheer in the middle distance crowd into the 
immediate foreground a scene so wild as to be almost unimaginable. 
On the ground lies the aged, white-bearded St. Anthony, physically 
overthrown by the gruesome devils that torment him. Surely only 
in mad delirium could such monsters appear as that with the head of 
a hippopotamus on a winged body, that with the body of a giant 
eagle and human arms, or those horned, fire-scattering devils with 
flaming eyes and red tongues lolling from their mouths. Beside 
them Durer's tempters are innocuous and even Schongauer's are 
subdued. One pulls his victim's hair; one beats him with a knotty 
stick; a horrible, poisonous-looking turtle bites the fingers that 
cling so tightly to staff and rosary; a fearful-looking devil who looks 
like a man with the bubonic plague, has stolen all his books. And 
still from out the shadows of the hillside the dread shapes come bear- 
ing new instruments of torture. The wretched man cries aloud; one 
fine, nervous hand is lifted to protect his head; but he does not struggle 
physically, for these are not tormentors of the body but of the inner 
man. They are but the awful moments all men may know, moments 
of temptation, remorse, soul searching, soul agony. From them he 
cannot escape or hide; the devils pull away the covering mantle of 
the dull blue and red which fall into purple tones in the shadows, 
and in the middle distance, imps are tearing down his house, of which 
but the bare rafters still stand; they will not leave him even the shelter 
and safeguard of an outer appearance of comfort, respectability or 
propriety. He can only cling to his staff and his rosary and his faith. 
And lo ! in the sky above, in a great glory of crimson and gold, appears 
God the Eternal Father still bearing the sceptre. 

This agony past, St. Anthony has wandered south and the scene 



MATTHAUS GRUXEWALD 107 

on the opposite wing shows him with St. Paul the Hermit in a warm, 
sunny landscape. In the remote background towers a phantastic 
ridge of high mountain peaks; at its base, in full sunshine, lies a 
meadow of brightest green through which a little stream meanders. 
In the middle distance are hills which almost cut the picture in half, 
and which make of the foreground a secluded, cool, grotto-like enclos- 
ure. Beside the hills is a tall palm and a knotted old tree all festooned 
with drooping moss, from which a raven flies, bearing in its beak 
bread for the hermit. A deer feeds in the cool shade, unafraid of the 
two aged men sitting so near it on the rocks. A peaceful, sylvan scene? 
Far from it. The picture is charged with a tense, nervous quality 
which makes you feel that this is no quiet, evening conversation, 
but an occasion of supreme moment. The phantastic mountain 
peaks, the leafless trees with their arms reaching out in every direc- 
tion, a certain fitful quality of the lighting, all reflect the dramatic 
force with which the old hermit, gesticulating impressively, speaks to 
his guest, who listens with all his powers concentrated. This is no 
ordinary 7 discussion of unimportant or secondary matters. The 
aged hermit, who has not spoken for so many of his hundred and 
twenty years of life that he has become dumb, now, in his last 
hours, has broken silence to reveal to St. Anthony the secret of 
the higher life. "Throw off the scholar's mantle and drop the 
wanderer's staff," he enjoins; "he down here on the green carpet of 
the meadow beside the spring, warmed by the dear sun, fed by the 
raven whose bread to-day feeds us both — become again a child of 
nature and let your vision grow as clear and strong and serene as 
this deer's beside us; then you will find peace." "They were his 
last words," says the legend; "in the morning he had entered into 
peace eternal." 

We close the first pair of wings and there breaks upon our won- 
dering eyes a glory as if the gates of heaven had been opened and 
we saw the angels of God ascending and descending. Experiences 
of earth or visions of heaven, these pictures almost transcend imagina- 
tion. On the left wing, there stands open before us a Gothic chapel 
separated from the rest of the church by the red curtain in the 
foreground. A green curtain in the background, near the left window, 
would, if drawn, divide the chapel itself in front of the altar. The 



108 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART 

foreground is in heavy shadow but farther away from us, near the 
windows, the chapel is flooded with light. Beside the heavily- 
fringed red curtain the Virgin, in robes of lustrous blue-green, kneels, 
reading from a large Bible which, with other books, rests on a strong- 
box in front of her. We know just what words she is reading, for 
above her in the wedge-shaped corner beyond the Gothic arch, stands 
the commanding figure of Isaiah, the prophet who wrote them: 
"Behold a virgin shall conceive and shall bear a son." Suddenly from 
the right — and this is the more startling because at variance with 
the traditional representation — there has appeared a great angel, all 
in a swirl of flaming yellow and red robes, ruddy curls falling to the 
nape of his neck, heavy wings spread, the toes of one foot but barely 
touching the ground — such an angel, with such luxuriance of draperies 
as we meet again in Melozzo da Forli. The apparition has startled 
the Virgin who has drawn back with a movement of fear, her hands 
meeting in prayer. Quickly and impressively, with the same effect 
of suddenness and intensity which marks the whole picture the angel 
has raised his right hand, the nervous, curving fingers outstretched 
in blessing, and is delivering his message. By the window, in a soft, 
white radiance, appears the Dove. 

The two scenes on the middle panels belong together and 
should be regarded as one; they are separated from each other only 
by some branches of a tree and a curtain drawn part way across the 
back. To the right is pictured the Holy Night. In a garden enclosed 
by a ruined brick wall, the Virgin, in soft full robes of red and blue, 
her red-gold hair unbound and falling in shining waves about her, sits 
by a tiny cot, surrounded by all the prosaic necessities of the house- 
hold, and holds the new-born Child. On her arms she holds him — 
on her hands rather, away from her — that she may look at him. Her 
lips are parted in murmuring love and adoration, on her face is a 
look of rapture which no other painter has dared to portray; an 
ecstasy that makes the onlooker catch his breath in wonder that 
such a radiance could shine through mortal flesh and could be 
recorded. Behind the Virgin, in the garden, blooms a red rose bush; 
just over the wall is a lake on whose shores rise the towers of a 
castle; on the hill-tops the shepherds watch their flocks. Were this 
all, it would be a charming, idyllic scene in the still loveliness of a 



MATTHAUS GRUNEWALD 109 

Syrian night. But in new yearning towards the earth, the heavens 
have opened and from the tlirone of glory there is poured out a great 
cascade of light like a waterfall, which shines upon the mists and 
takes on all the colours of the rainbow in all their infinite gradations 
of tone. In that cascade of light are countless angels whose bodiless, 
transparent forms reflect the colours through which in moving, 
they pass — red, yellow, green, blue and violet — shading from one to 
another with such subtlety that there seems to be no dividing line. 
No other artist but Tintoretto has succeeded thus in presenting 
disembodied spirits. In his "Baptism of Christ" the "clouds of 
witnesses" along the shore are nothing more substantial than 
light which has taken shape, as here, in Griinewald, the angels in 
the sky are but luminous colour which has taken on form without 
substance. 

These are not, however, the only angels who make this night 
glorious. Almost filling the wing to the left, is a tabernacle all 
adorned with curving vines, restless, vibrant leaves and gesticulat- 
ing prophets. And in this tabernacle is assembled the Choir Celestial 
filling the world with the music of their New Song. In the immedi- 
ate foreground, outside the tabernacle, kneels a large, beautiful 
angel with shining yellow hair, who is playing upon a viol. The 
rainbow-hued light from the opened heavens falls upon her di- 
aphanous robes changing their rose colour to yellow, the yellow to 
green, the green to blue, the blue to violet and then to green 
again, softly and with extreme delicacy of transition. The gar- 
ments are instinct with life, their folds are rounded because full 
of air, their materials so gauzy and translucent that it seems only 
natural that they should reflect all the colours in the supernatu- 
ral fight shed upon them. No more beautiful painting of a ma- 
terial and of changeable colouring can be imagined than the bit 
of this angel's robe which has hardly touched the floor, just inside 
the frame. Barely inside the tabernacle is an angel in brilliant 
red magically touched with yellow, pink, grey-blue and green; 
behind it, one all in green feathers which, where the fight falls 
on them, turn to bronze and which cast such a strong reflection 
on the angel's face that it becomes almost the same colour as 
they. Then more red and green angels, growing ever smaller and 



110 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART 

smaller as they stretch away to the sky background where they 
take on the colour of its own blue touched with yellow light. The 
assembly of all these crowding, colourful angels is in itself a rhapsody 
and the surging of the colour waves conveys to one's senses the pas- 
sionate music they are pouring forth. In the arch of the tabernacle, 
to the right, kneels a little figure in robes of green and red and 
shimmering pink and yellow, her golden hair enveloping her like 
sunlight. Upon her head is a crown, around it a huge nimbus of 
golden fight, becoming red on the outer edges; her clasped hands are 
golden-coloured in its light. Her face is so dead white as to be 
almost indistinguishable and the features are not modelled at all; it 
is as if they were blotted out by the brightness of the fight — a truly 
observed natural phenomenon which, recorded, creates the impression 
the painter wishes to give that this is a spiritual, not a physical pres- 
ence. It is St. Catherine, the visionary Bride of Christ who has come 
to join this adoring host. 

The fourth panel contains a not less original and remarkable pre- 
sentation of the Resurrection. From the narrow open tomb set 
diagonally in the middle of the picture rises the Christ, borne upward 
by the divine power which is in him. He does not walk or climb 
out of the tomb in his human form and body, but ascends from it, 
facing us, a form of fight. Almost his whole body has for a back- 
ground a nimbus of rainbow-hued light, against which his dead-white 
arms and hands are silhouetted as he holds them up, palm outward 
that all may see the wounds. His red robe floats about him in 
the breeze caused by his movement of ascension; the light of the 
nimbus turns it to bright yellow on his shoulders. His long, blue 
mantle streams behind him, even into the empty tomb below, 
and is touched into various changing colours as it catches the 
light from above. His very robes have more weight than the 
body of Christ which so easily maintains itself thus floating in 
the air. His head and features are not modelled; they are barely 
indicated, as if almost obliterated by the dazzling brightness of 
the fight. On the ground are the guards, shielding their eyes 
from the blinding glare, stumbling, reeling, falling head foremost 
to the ground. 

Then we close the second pair of wings expecting to find, as is 




Photograph by F. Bruckmann A-G, Munich 



MATTHAUS GRUNEWALD 

Angels' Concert 
museum, colmab 



MATTHAUS GRUXEWALD 111 

usual on the outside of an altar, some decorative design or some 
symbolic Biblical figures, probably done, like those on the master's 
Frankfort altar, without colours, in grey on grey, and we find instead 
one great tragic picture, the Crucifixion! On the stationary wings 
to right and left of the central picture are, indeed, two such figures as 
we might have expected to see in its place — St. Sebastian and 
St. Anthony standing on vine-wreathed marble pedestals. St. 
Sebastian, though pierced wth arrows, is not a sufferer but a symbol. 
His athletic young body was evidently drawn from life; indeed 
the picture is believed to be a portrait of the artist himself. St. 
Anthony, with curling white hair and beard, is a virile old man 
of remarkable beauty, robed in garments of greenish-blue and red, 
with which the fight falling through the small, high window 
beside him works miracles. 

But it is hard to be so much as aware of the stationary wings, so 
utterly is the spectator held captive by the middle picture. On a 
small, rocky plateau in the foreground the cross is erected and on it, 
but little above the ground, hangs, or rather towers, the great form of 
the tortured Christ. Xo single detail of his suffering is spared us. 
The muscles are twisted, the limbs distorted, the fingers spread 
convulsively, the feet deformed by the agony. Every pore of the body 
has sweat blood. The thorn-crowned head has at last fallen forward 
on the breast, the eyes are closed, the swollen lips parted in death. 
And yet, in spite of all the marks of immeasurable anguish, the 
figure on the cross towers majestic. By a miracle of perception 
joined with creative power, the painter who pictures thus realis- 
tically the sufferings of this man knew how to remove him far 
from insignificance, and to convey, over and above them, the im- 
pression of tremendous, victorious personality, of majesty. Xo 
one shall pity, merely; he shall also marvel greatly. Hence it 
is that the words uttered by John the Baptist, who stands 
with the Immaculate Lamb to the left of the cross, do not seem 
incredible: "He must increase." St. John is presented symbolically 
and according to tradition, but on the right of the cross is a realistic 
group presented as never before in art, in a manner we are wont to 
characterise as "modern." The Virgin robed all in white, sinks, 
wringing her hands, into the arms of the youthful John who, in his 



112 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART 

robes of bright scarlet, bis straight, red hair all dishevelled, his face 
all marred with weeping, cries aloud in his grief as he bends over her. 
The effect of the white robes against the scarlet is in itself startling 
and heightens the emotional pitch of the scene. At their feet, 
between them and the cross, kneels Mary Magdalen in very full 
robes of yellowish red, her golden hair like a veil about her. Her 
body and head are tilted backward as she gazes upward at the 
Crucified One, her hands are clasping and unclasping, the fingers 
twisting in her despairing grief; her lips are drawn in bitter moan- 
ing. Behind the rocky plateau on which is the cross and on which 
the full light of day is beating, is a stream beyond which the light 
trembles off ever fainter and more faint into the black darkness 
over the hills in the background. 

The Entombment, on the predella, is the natural continuation of 
this central picture of the Crucifixion and belongs to it so perfectly in 
design, that the central tree of the Entombment continues as if one 
with the tree which is the cross. The composition is Grxinewald's 
own and the whole treatment startlingly modern. The long, low, 
brick-red sarcophagus of which we cannot see all, as it runs over 
the edge of the frame at the left, extends into the middle of the 
picture. To the right, overlapping it, is the body of the cte«fcL 
Christ, still distorted, but at peace and made ready for burialT 
Its apparent size is increased by the extremely youthful slender- 
ness of John who is trying to support it. Of the Virgin only the sad 
mouth and the clasped hands are visible, for her heavy white veil 
almost hides her face. Mary Magdalen is behind the sarcophagus, 
above which only her head and shoulders are seen — as if she 
were in a hollow and it on the hillside. Her features are dis- 
torted with weeping, her eyes red and swollen, her lips parted in 
wailing outcry. The landscape in which this scene is set is brown 
and sere; the three trees cut off so that only a third of the trunk 
is seen and not a branch nor a leaf appears, give an indescrib- 
able effect of loneliness and desolation. A remarkable sense of 
colour values is revealed in the juxtaposition of the red of the 
sarcophagus, the red hair and garments of the saints and the 
red of the sunset. 

Reviewing again all the pictures on the Isenheim Altar, the phan- 



MATTHAUS GRUNEWALD 113 

tastic, the visionary or ecstatic and the tragic, we know not whether 
we are more amazed at the master's gigantic and original conceptions, 
his marvellous imagination or his mastery of the technical problems 
involved. In all these he reveals creative genius. His conceptions 
were not delivered to him by tradition, his visions were of his own 
seeing. Never before was such a Holy Night, such a Resurrection or 
Entombment presented. Nor could he ever have seen anything in art 
to suggest to him the wonderful colour effects in these scenes. He 
also breaks with the hitherto accepted technique of painting. The 
careful drawing, the methods of the goldsmith and the engraver are 
superseded in his work by the methods of the painter who thinks in 
colour, whose outlines are given and whose forms are modelled by 
means of light and shade. All that was small and painfully painstak- 
ing in German art vanished in his pictures. He Jet go of himself and 
his genius and the result was the expression of big, original concep- 
tions with tremendous impressiveness and with an almost over- 
powering emotional effect which was heightened by his marvellous 
colour and light. He let go, however, involuntarily and uncon- 
sciously; not as do some of the modern "realists," voluntarily and 
consciously, and with the result that their pictures are chambers 
of horrors, imaginings of disordered brains or mere records of 
freakish whims. Griinewald was sincerely taken possession of by 
mighty conceptions, under whose mastery he let go unconsciously, 
with his gift of colour brought his visions within our range of 
sight, and in doing so gave us pictures unique in the history of art. 



CHAPTER XV 

THE QUESTION OF THE IDENTITY OF 
PSEUDO-GRUNEWALD 

IN the Castle at Aschaffenburg near Frankfort there are fifteen 
pictures upon which for years an unusual degree of attention 
and interest has been concentrated and about the authorship of 
which contention has been rife among historians and critics. These 
pictures represent the Virgin as Queen of Heaven, the Holy Kinship, 
the Mass of St. Gregory — two representations — the Martyrdom 
of St. Erasmus, and ten standing saints given in full length, 
Maurice, Magdalen, Martin, Erasmus, Ursula, Stephen, Chrysostom, 
Martha, Mary Magdalen and Lazarus. They were evidently painted 
for the Cardinal Duke Albrecht of Brandenburg, as his coat-of-arms 
is in every picture except the two of the Mass of St. Gregory, in 
which he himself is a participant in the ceremony. 

When the saints are presented in a landscape it is so "modern" 
in its atmospheric quality, in the dramatic lights and shadows 
produced by the many troubled clouds that chase one another with 
weird effect across the sky, that it was at first believed that no one 
but Matthaus Griinewald with his marvellous mastery of light could 
have created these pictures. The types and the bearing of the 
people are, however, foreign to Griinewald and, though the painter is 
fond of shimmering silks and lustrous velvets and furs, he does not 
seek the wonderful colour effects of Griinewald but holds in the 
main to a cool, bluish tone. So the hypothesis of his authorship 
was given up and the pictures were ascribed indefinitely to an artist 
who was probably a pupil of Griinewald who, in many particulars, 
emulated his master and who, for want of a name, became known 
as Pseudo-Grunewald. Janitschek and Niedermeyer believe him 
to be identical with one Simon von Aschaffenburg of whom it is 
known that he was court painter to Cardinal Albrecht and that he 
died between 1543 and 1546. Scheibler contends that the types 
are the types of Lucas Cranach the Elder and that the pictures were 

114 



IDENTITY OF PSEUDO-GRUXEWALD 115 

painted by him in those early years before he went to Wittenberg, 
of which we possess no record. Some of the pictures attributed 
to Pseudo-Griinewald, in Aschaffenburg and elsewhere, are dated, 
however, as the Aschaffenburg Martyrdom of St. Erasmus, 1516, 
the Saints, in Bamberg Gallery, 1520, the Altar in the Marktkir- 
che, Halle, 1529. Now before 1516 Lucas Cranach had become an 
exceedingly busy painter in Wittenberg, and his pictures of that 
period are not done in the spirit of the Pseudo-Griinewalds. His 
landscapes and skies possess little in common with them, the people 
portrayed by him are smaller, slighter in build and more simple and 
naive in their natures. The Pseudo-Griinewald people are large and 
stately; the women are utterly without the native coquetry which 
marks almost all Cranach's women except in the very earliest pictures, 
and possess a capability, a largeness of nature and a serenity that would 
be inconceivable to those of the Cranach type. The theory advanced 
by Flechsig that possibly that son of Lucas Cranach who was so 
greatly gifted and so highly esteemed, Johannes Lucas Cranach, who 
died at Bologna in 1537, was the painter of the Pseudo-Griinewalds, 
is most interesting and reasonable. It would mean that Johannes 
Lucas had adopted, in the main, the external features of his father's 
types, had studied with Griinewald and, with inherited Cranach 
facility, had acquired much of his command of light; and then 
by the force of his own greatness had endowed his people — 
especially the women — with the strength, nobility and steadfast- 
ness which his father possessed in himself but did not reveal in 
his pictures. 

From the same hand as the Aschaffenburg pictures are the two 
pictures already referred to, the Altar in the Marktkirche in Halle, 
representing the Annunciation and Saints, the Virgin and Child in a 
nimbus, with Cardinal Albrecht offering the Child a book, and two 
Saints with Donor in Bamberg Gallery. Over this small group, 
representing Saints Walpurga and Wilibald and the Bishop of 
Eichstatt hovers a nude, winged cherub, wholly in the Cranach 
manner. St. Walpurga is marked by a calm and deep reverence of 
spirit and stillness of pose; St. Wilibald, in Bishop's regalia, is as 
strongly characterised as if he had been painted by Griinewald's 
own hand; the venerable donor, in his white robes, a small black cap 



116 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART 

on his white hair, is drawn from life but reveals a certain lack 
of virility and decision of character which, indeed, may have 
been proper to him, but which, since it marks such other pic- 
tures of men by this master as the outwardly large and impres- 
sive St. Lazarus, seems rather to reveal a weakness in the artist 
who created him. 

As to who this interesting artist was — the problem of the 
identity of Pseudo-Griinewald must still remain without conclusive 
settlement. It is possible that he was Simon von Aschaffenburg; 
we know nothing of Simon's characteristics and he might have 
studied with Matthaus Griinewald before Grunewald left his na- 
tive town. To me it seems impossible that he should have been 
Lucas Cranach and that these stately, serene women should be the 
few exceptions to his accepted standard. But it seems more than 
probable that he was his brilliant elder son Johannes Lucas 
Cranach, who died in Bologna in 1537, who gave us in these 
pictures his father's types ennobled and who had been as well a 
pupil of Grunewald, from whom he had gained a certain degree 
of insight into the effects of atmospheric conditions, of clouds, 
lights and shadows in a landscape. 




Photograph by Franz Hanfstaengl 

PSEUDO-GRUXEWALD 

St. Martha with the Dragon 

castle, aschaffenburg 




Photograph hy Fried. Hoifte, Augsburg 

LUCAS MOSER 

St. Mary Magdalen Altar 

chubch, tiefe.nbronn 

The Supper at the House of Simon; Voyage to Marseilles with Martha. Lazarus and Two Bishops 

the Saint performs a Miracle in the Upper Room while her Companions sleep; Last Communion 

of St. Mary Magdalen. 



CHAPTER XVI 

THE UPPER RHINE 

LUCAS MOSER— COXRAD WTTZ— HANS BALDUNG GRtJN 

TIE early artists of the Upper Rhine and Swabia reveal them- 
selves, in observation and in realistic presentation of what 
they observe, remarkably in advance of the School of Cologne. 
It is true that no works remain to us from the XIV century, so that 
we cannot judge of the ideals of the first decades; but as early as the 
first half of the XV century we find the painters treating their subjects 
in quite a matter of fact fashion, picturing the saints as frankly as 
ordinary human beings and with a degree of realism which 
surpasses even that of the Van Eycks. Perspective and light seem 
to have interested the painters of the Upper Rhine country almost 
from the beginning and they must have made their experiments along 
these fines at an early date. Otherwise there is no explanation for 
the creation of such a work as Lucas Moser's Tiefenbronn Altar, in 
which the attempts at natural and truthful perspective and light are 
truly remarkable for 1-431. 

This altar, in the little church in the village of Tiefen- 
bronn, on a high plateau in the picturesque valley of the Wurm, 
is built in the shape of a Gothic arch and was set up in honour 
of St. Mary Magdalen. On the shrine, in wood carving, is the 
Assumption of the saint; on the inner side of the left wing she 
stands holding the box of ointment; on the opposite wing is her 
brother, St. Lazarus, wearing his episcopal robes. When the 
wings are closed, there are presented four scenes from the life of 
the saint. On the left we see her with Martha, Lazarus and two 
other bishops in a boat on the sea, bound for Marseilles. She is not 
strongly individualised, but is of much girlish charm and overflowing 
with life and energy. She wears a long mantle and a characteristic 
headdress of the period with a broad wimple. All in the boat are 
engaged in earnest conversation. St. Mary is talking and gesticulat- 
ing, St. Lazarus is leaning forward to listen. He has taken off his 

117 



118 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART 

mitre to let the fresh breeze blow on his tonsured head. He has also 
drawn off his gloves and holds them in his left hand. The bishop 
sitting beside Mary Magdalen is a real and definite person, who 
appears deeply interested in the subject under consideration. 
Martha and the third bishop are not individualised. The boat 
is very tiny to hold so many people — so tiny that they seem 
to extend over both sides of it — but it has been going at a good 
rate over the small, choppy waves, carried along by the strong 
breeze which swells the sails of the other boats that dot the sea. 
Now its sail is dropped, for it is about to make the landing at 
Marseilles. Most interesting is the attempt to convey the move- 
ment of the ship and of the water and the light which, shining 
across the curious little waves, touches their crests with silver. 

The saints arrive at their destination utterly weary from the 
journey. The central picture shows us the three bishops and St. 
Martha overcome by sleep as they sit on a low bench in the red-tiled 
porch of a house in this foreign city. One bishop is sunk in 
profound slumber, his head resting upon his hand; a second, who 
has substituted for his mitre a small velvet cap, is still sitting 
fairly upright facing us, but his eyes are shut tightly. Lazarus 
is so completely overpowered by sleep that his head has fallen 
forward, face downward, in Martha's lap; his mitre has fallen off 
on the floor. Even Martha cannot help nodding above the 
prostrate Lazarus. But Mary Magdalen is awake and busy 
with good deeds. Upstairs, in the second storey of the house 
with the porch, she may be seen distinctly through the large 
window, working a miracle of healing upon the man and woman so 
ill in bed. 

Skilfully joined to this house, so that the slender pinnacles are 
part on one wing and part on the other, is a Gothic church in which 
St. Mary Magdalen, upheld by angels, is receiving the sacrament. 
Through the many arches in the background other scenes are faintly 
visible; through the window in the middle distance to the left, a man 
is looking in upon the scene in the church. 

In the pointed arch at the top of the altar is set the scene at 
dinner in the house of Simon the Pharisee. It is a homely family 
meal in a leafy arbour; the table is rudely constructed and set as it 



THE UPPER RHINE 119 

might be for a simple supper in a German household. The wine is 
cooling in a tub of water on the ground; a serving maid is hurrying 
to the table with two covered plates and a spoon; a dog is sleeping on 
the ground near his master's end of the table. Simon is dressed quite 
handsomely in the costume of the period and wears a fur trimmed 
cap. The serving maid, too, wears such a costume as the artist 
doubtless saw daily in his own household. Three of the four people at 
table are conversing familiarly. Only the presence of the weeping 
Magdalen, who, on her knees in front of the table, reaches underneath 
it to dry the feet of Christ with one loosened braid of her long, red- 
gold hair, and the Christ's air of detachment, convey any suggestion 
that this differs from an ordinary supper. 

On the predella is pictured the scene of the Heavenly Bridegroom 
coming in the clouds of heaven, welcomed by the five wise virgins, 
importuned for mercy by the five foolish virgins on whom he has 
turned his back. This subject of the wise and foolish virgins is of 
such frequent recurrence in German art as to attract attention, 
especially since it appears but rarely in the art of any other country. 
The parable seems to have represented most clearly to the mediaeval 
German Christians the personal relationship of Christ and his 
people and to have called up most vividly before their imaginations, 
on the one hand, the joy of the moment of Christ's coming to those 
who were prepared to meet him; on the other, the awfulness of a 
moment when they might be left in utter darkness outside the bliss of 
heaven, knocking at an eternally closed door, crying bitterly and 
hopelessly "Lord, Lord, open unto us!" Over and over again the 
story is told in painting, wood carving and mystery play. So real 
were the emotions it called up that — the old chronicles tell us — 
when it was presented as a mystery play at Eisenach in 1322, the 
Elector Frederick became so agitated he was seized with an apoplexy 
which left him dumb and lame until his death. The virgins on Lucas 
Moser's predella are individualised in quite a remarkable degree, and 
their garments are fashioned according to the prevailing mode. 

We cannot help wondering where the painter of this altar- 
piece learned how to invest his figures with such a degree of life- 
likeness as those possess who sit at table in the house of Simon or who 
sleep on that porch in Marseilles; how to picture movement with 



120 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART 

such naturalness as in the servant waiting at table, and in Mary- 
Magdalen hastening to the bedside of those who lie at the point of 
death in that upper room; how to give, even though imperfectly, 
that view into the church interior in the communion scene and that 
over the wide stretch of shining water in the voyage to Marseilles. 
It is so early for this otherwise unknown artist to have attempted 
these things! Notwithstanding the remarkable degree of success 
he achieved in solving his problems, he seems to have been rather 
disheartened over the general lack of interest in art, for he has 
inscribed in ornamental letters of gold on the green framing of the 
middle wings of the altar a plaint: "Cry aloud, Art, and mourn 
bitterly for no one now desires you! alas! alas! 1431, Lucas Moser of 
Weil, Master of this work; pray God for him!" 

These problems of perspective and light which were so interesting 
to Lucas Moser were worked out with a degree of success truly 
astonishing for the first half of the XV century by an artist who 
worked on the Upper Rhine but a few years later, Conrad Witz. 
Though in many particulars, such as the gold background, he still 
belongs to the old school, his feeling for distance, for light in an inside 
room and as it is caught and refracted by shimmering materials of 
glowing colour will bear comparison with that of the later Dutch 
masters. His types are short and rather thick-set, with such ir- 
regular features and such lifelikeness of expression and attitude that 
they seem very real persons. 

Conrad Witz was born in Constance, lived for a time in Rothweil 
in Swabia, then moved to Basel where, in 1434, he became a Master 
of the Guild and in 1435 a citizen of the town. In 1444 he went to 
Geneva where he spent two years. He died in Basel in 1448. 

Conrad Witz's delight in the picturing of an inner roon and its 
lighting is felt in such a picture as his "Annunciation," in the Germanic 
Museum, Nuremberg. The scene takes place in no marble-columned 
hall or cathedral apse, but in such a room as the painter doubtless 
saw daily in any German burgerlichen house, the walls white- 
washed, the ceiling timbered. The light strikes into the room 
sharply from a window in the background. Near the centre, the 
Virgin, who is given in profile and wears a robe of greenish blue, 
sits reading. Behind her the door with the great iron latch has 



THE UPPER RHINE 121 

opened to admit the angel robed in red velvet with a white alba, 
who holds in his left hand a scroll and points upward with his 
right. He has sunk upon one knee and the Virgin has turned 
toward him, without, however, looking around at him. The picture 
is most attractive in the unusualness of the setting and lighting 
of the scene, the extreme seriousness of its tone and the charm 
of the Virgin, with her very full, glowingly coloured robes, her 
wavy, flaxen hair, large eyes, retrousse nose and the evident 
alertness of her mind and responsiveness of her whole being. 

Still more beautiful and alluring in lighting is the panel in 
Strassburg Gallery which presents St. Catherine and St. Mary 
Magdalen seated in the foreground of a Gothic cloister. The 
beautiful, stately St. Catherine is absorbed in reading a large book. 
Her amazingly full robes of rich, red silk with jewelled trimmings are 
spread about her in broken folds which are bright and shimmer- 
ing where the light touches them, dark and lustrous in shadow. 
Her hair is bound up and she wears a jewelled crown and a halo. 
Her bearing is dignified and full of distinction. Beside her, to the 
left, is St. Mary Magdalen in voluminous robes of brightest green 
silk. Her long, golden hair is unbound and falls in shining waves 
over her shoulders. She wears a jewelled band instead of a crown. 
Her right hand, adorned with three rings, rests on her knee; in her 
left hand is the box of ointment. She is much younger and more 
girlish-looking than St. Catherine and is so natural, so lacking in 
remoteness, that she is altogether lovable. Her features are piquantly 
irregular; the chin is short and rather pointed, the mouth tender, 
the forehead wide, the nose retrousse. The green of her dress, 
faintly reflected, touches with green her cheeks and the tip of 
her nose. Her large, full eyes are fixed in eager regard on some 
object above and beyond St. Catherine — perhaps the sky above the 
cloister court. 

Behind the two saints stretches the long Gothic corridor. In a 
small chapel to the left an altar is visible, with candles and a painted 
altar-piece. The fight falls so that the columns on the right 
cast little patches and lines of shadow and St. Catherine's 
wheel is reflected on the pavement beneath it. Away in the back- 
ground an arch opens on a street in which several people are walking 



122 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART 

and talking; one of them is reflected in a puddle of water in the 
middle of the road. On the opposite side of the street is an art store 
with little carved figures in the windows. 

A still wider vista is opened before us in the master's "Holy 
Family" in Naples Gallery, which gives a view of the inside of 
Basel Cathedral, which in the correctness of its perspective and 
the charm of its light and shade, vies with the later Dutch 
pictures of interiors. 

An artist whose conceptions are original and interesting and 
whose types possess much charm, Conrad Witz's chief attraction, 
nevertheless, lies in his fresh enthusiasm for the problem of 
perspective, light and shade and in the remarkable truth and 
beauty of his attempts at their solution. 

The interest in light which was so marked a characteristic of 
the XV century painters of the Upper Rhine persisted into the XVI 
century and the manner in which it reveals and exalts the sentiment 
of his pictures is one of the chief elements of the charm of Strassburg's 
greatest artist, Hans Baldung Griin. Hans Baldung was born in 
Weyerstein-on-Turm near Strassburg in 1476. His father, Johann 
Baldung, was a distinguished lawyer, his brother Caspar belonged 
to the faculty of Freiburg University. In 1507, having completed 
his period of apprenticeship and his Wanderjahre, he settled in 
Strassburg, becoming a citizen two years later. In 1511 he received 
a commission to paint the High Altar for Freiburg Cathedral, and 
went there to live for the five years he was engaged on it. Then he 
returned to his home in Strassburg, was elected a member of the 
City Council and continued to reside there until his death in 1545. 

The earliest influence noticeable in the development of Hans 
Baldung's art is that of Diirer, which is very evident in the two 
panels painted in 1507 for the Stadtkirche in Halle, one of which, 
now in Berlin Gallery, represents the Adoration of the Kings, the 
other in Fraulein Przibram's Collection, Vienna, the Martyrdom 
of St. Sebastian. The type of the Madonna in the Adoration is 
Diirer' s, the drawing and modelling in both pictures are reminiscent 
of him, the draperies fall, as he would have pictured them, in many 
broken folds. Among the colours in these, as in the artist's other 
pictures, a brilliant green is prominent, the constant use of which 




COXRAD WITZ 

Saints Mary Magdalen and Catherine in a Cloister 

gallery, strassburg 




Photograph by Geo. Robcke, Freiburg 



HANS BALDUNG GRUN 

Holy Night, Flight into Egypt 

from the high altar, freibl'rg cathedral 



THE UPPER RHINE 123 

gave him his nickname "Griin" or "Grien;" Diirer, in his diary, 
calls him "Griinhans." 

Before he began the work for Freiburg Cathedral he had come 
under a second powerful influence — the mighty spell of Grunewald's 
colour and light, which every picture in the great altar reveals in 
greater or lesser degree. 

The shrine, which contains the Coronation of the Virgin and 
the twelve apostles, is the least interesting section of the altar. 
God the Father and Christ lack nobility, the pose of the Virgin 
borders on affectation. The crowds of angels are given in such 
very white light that they are without glory. The Dove is a 
radiance, the halo an aureole of intangible light rays as in the Griine- 
wald pictures. Among the apostles are many figures that are un- 
questionably portraits. 

On the wings are the Annunciation, Visitation, Holy Night and 
Flight into Egypt. The scene of the Annunciation is a trifle theat- 
rical; the Virgin's attitude seems self-conscious, her amazement, hu- 
mility and joy are unconvincing. The angel's wings are many col- 
oured; his green robes are turned almost to white where the strong light 
falls upon their folds. The Dove is light which barely assumes form. 
In the Visitation the forms are large, full and stately and the Vir- 
gin is of rare beauty. The Holy Night is a striking anticipation 
of Correggio. From the beautiful Babe a light radiates which 
illumines the faces of the Virgin and Joseph and touches the near 
building in which are the cattle. But while the artist's power over 
light in such a picture as this so strongly suggests the influence of 
Grunewald, the Strassburg painter never for a moment attains the 
sublime heights of the Isenheim altar. Instead of sublimity a 
graceful, whimsical fancifulness characterises him and the atmos- 
phere of his pictures is that of a lovely fairy tale. Thus in the 
Holy Night, while tiny angels hover about the child, a little bird 
pecks at the flowers and small rabbits nibble greens. 

The Flight into Egypt, is a charming, poetic idyll. The shaggy 
donkey, with his precious burden, is going at a good pace down hill. 
All about bloom flowers; a snail and a bird are right in the path. 
Joseph, a thick-set, strong peasant, carrying a knapsack and a 
rosary, is looking back adoringly at the Virgin, who, wearing a soft, 



124 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART 

veil-like headdress and full robes of which the draping recalls Diirer, is 
supporting the Child on her left arm while with the right, which is 
held in a very unnatural and undoubtedly very tiring position, she 
guides the donkey with a piece of rope for a bridle. A date palm 
over their heads is full of little winged angels, one of whom has let 
himself down by the end of a branch so that he stands on the donkey 
and can look at the lovely baby Christ. 

On the back of the shrine is "The Crucifixion," in which the painter 
himself, wearing a red cap, has joined the group about the cross. 
To the right of the central picture are St. John the Baptist and St. 
Jerome; to the left, St. Lawrence and — a most imposing figure — St. 
George in full armour wearing a helmet with long, waving, white 
plumes. On the base are the three male donors, unmistakably 
portraits from life, adoring the Virgin and Child in a Glory. 

Besides the High Altar there are in one of the Chapels two wings 
of a second altar which represent the Baptism of Christ and St. John 
on Patmos. The river in which the Baptism takes place forms part of 
a large landscape. God the Father is seen in the sky above, the Dove 
has alighted on the head of Christ. The scene fails to be impressive, 
however; it is so commonplace and lacking in elevation that the 
greatest attraction of the picture lies in the naturalness of the 
rapidly flowing water of the stream. 

The " St. John on Patmos " shows us the saint in a red robe under a 
tree all festooned with moss as in Griinewald's " St. Anthony and 
St. Paul." The island is in the foreground, the sea stretches into the 
background quite to the edge of the picture. In the sky above in a 
circle of curling clouds, appear the very lovely Virgin and Child. 

About the end of the Freiburg period, in 1516, the "Martyrdom 
of St. Dorothea," now in the Rudolphinum, Prague, was painted, in 
which the scene is set in a winter landscape which is most unusual 
and fascinating. From the same year dates "The Deluge," in Bamberg 
Gallery, which, though but a small picture, possesses unusual power 
by virtue of the dramatic quality with which the light shining upon 
the falling rain or the mists touches all the air with rainbow hues — an 
effect which is quite Grunewaldesque. This subject offers, too, an 
opportunity of which the artist takes full advantage, to paint the 
nude human form in almost every conceivable attitude. And this is 




Photograph by Fried. Hoefle, Augsburg 

HANS BALDUXG GRUN 

Allegorical Figure — Music 

GERMANIC MUSEUM, NUREMBERG 



THE UPPER RHINE 125 

just the beginning; from this time Baldung Griin's works reveal a new 
delight in the presentation of the nude. The type chosen is the 
full, mature form portrayed by the Venetians and by such a German- 
ised Venetian as Jacopo de' Barbari. In one of the two pictures in 
Basel Gallery' painted in 1517, which represent Death and the Maiden, 
he pictures a woman quite of the Titian or Palma Vecchio type, with 
flowing golden-brown hair, who shudderingly tries to pull up the 
drapery which has slipped from her body as she shrinks from the 
kiss of Death who has come up behind her. In the other picture 
the maiden in transparent gauze robes yields to this weird lover's 
insistence as if utterly dazed. 

Three allegories painted some year later, between 1523 and 1529, 
also present very beautiful studies of the human form. The fact 
that one of them, "The Two Witches," in the Stadel Institute, 
Frankfort, was formerly in Rome, helps to confirm the theory of a 
sojourn made by the artist in Italy. It shows, in a twilight landscape, 
under a wild sky, two women one of whom is riding a goat and holding 
aloft a glass in which is a little devil (?). A small Amor is pulling her 
robe from her. The other woman, nude and without symbol, is 
also pulling at the garments of the one riding the goat. Of the other 
two allegories, which are in the Germanic Museum, Nuremberg, 
the one represents Wisdom, a nude figure bearing a serpent and a 
mirror; the other, Music, holding a violin and a music book, with, at 
her feet, a white cat. In these allegorical pictures and the two of 
Death and the Maiden, Hans Baldung painted the most beautiful 
nude forms in the German art of the XVI century and approached 
more nearly than any other northern artist the Venetian ideal of 
beauty. 

Inevitably the painter attracted the attention of that distin- 
guished patron of the arts, Cardinal Albrecht of Brandenburg. Two 
of the pictures he painted for him are still in Aschaffenburg Castle. 
The one, "The Crucifixion," bears in the corner of the picture the 
Cardinal's coat-of-arms ; the other, "The Holy Night," is very similar 
to the scene on the Freiburg Altar, and is full of poetry and charm. 

Baldung Griin also won considerable fame as a portrait painter. 
His earlier portraits, as those of Elector Christopher of Baden, 1511, 
and Philip the Warlike, 1517, are marked by a certain hardness and 



126 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART 

sharpness which later disappeared, giving place to softness of contour 
and naturalness. His subjects are presented with considerable in- 
sight and the colouring is, in many cases, of unusual beauty. His 
" Head of an Old Man," in Berlin Gallery, was, indeed, long attributed 
to Diirer. 

Besides a great number of paintings, the artist has left many 
beautiful drawings. He was one of the artists chosen by the Emperor 
Maximilian to illustrate his Prayerbook and began work for it in 
1515. Eight drawings from his hand, with such varied subjects as 
the Crucifixion, the Pieta, children playing with lions and with 
crocodiles are in the Besancon fragment and are, next to Diirer's, 
the most beautiful drawings in the Prayerbook. His sketch book, 
in Carlsruhe Gallery, is filled with interesting drawings for portraits 
and landscapes and studies of plants and animals. 

Hans Baldung Griin is not a great creative artist. He takes from 
other artists, from Diirer, Griinewald and the Italians, whatever 
attracts him, adapts it to his need, makes it his own. Sometimes we 
feel that he almost belittles the Grilnewaldesque effects in light and 
colour by the readiness with which he introduces his adaptations of 
them into scenes which, in their content or in the spirit in which they 
are conceived, do not call for any such supernatural manifestations. 
Again, in spite of a certain littleness, superficiality and occasional 
self-consciousness, he creates with his light and colour an atmosphere 
of idyllic peace or of tender intimacy. His pictures are not often 
powerful, impressive, wonder-stirring, but are rather delicately fanci- 
ful. He presents unusually lovely types with tenderness and in soft, 
warm colours, investing almost all his pictures with the quality of 
poetic charm. 



I 



CHAPTER XVII 

MARTIN SCHOXGAUER AND THE COLMAR SCHOOL 

CASPER ISENMANN— MARTIN SCHOXGAUER 
— LUDWIG SCHOXGAUER 

ALMOST in the Rhineland, the httle Alsatian town of Colmar 
at the foot of the Vosges mountains developed one of the most 
important schools of painting and engraving in the XV 
century. It was toward Colmar that Diirer the student turned his 
steps, toward the workshop of the great Martin Schongauer whose 
fame and whose influence had spread not only throughout Germany 
but to Italy as well, where one of the earliest of Michael Angelo's 
drawings is a free copy of his "Temptation of St. Anthony" and 
Raphael's "Entombment" is, in composition, almost identical with 
his engraving of the same subject. 

The earliest artist on the records of Colmar, and probably the 
teacher of the great Schongauer, was Caspar Isenmann, to whom as 
"painter and citizen of Colmar" the painting of a High Altar for its 
principal church, St. Martin's, was entrusted in 1462. The condi- 
tions named in the contract were that it "must be painted with the 
best oils on a gold ground and finished within two years." On the 
back of this parchment contract is written: "N. B. In the year 1720, 
the last Thursday of the week of Corpus Christi, after the proces- 
sion, the iron braces which held this altar at the back became loose, 
so that this altar fell down and broke." The sections remaining 
are now in the Museum in Colmar. They consist of seven scenes 
from the Passion, from the Triumphal Entry to the Resurrection. 
The three saints on the outer sides, Nicholas, Catherine and Law- 
rence, are the work of a pupil. 

Caspar Isenmann's aim in the Colmar altar is realism. The 
people who take part in his dramatic scenes are undersized and 
ordinary, with prominent cheek-bones, large noses and wide mouths. 
The villains are monstrous. In the attempt to express fully the 
individuality of each person he often characterises to the point of 
caricaturing them; yet with all this characterisation of the heads, the 

127 



128 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART 

bodies are poorly drawn, the poses often impossible. Burlesque 
details are freely introduced. The atmosphere of sanctity is absent 
from his scenes as the stamp of divinity or even of high nobility is 
lacking in his Christ. Occasionally, but very rarely, there is a 
personality which attracts us, not by beauty, but by force of character, 
as the old man at the head of Christ in the "Taking down from the 
Cross." 

Yet in all probability it was in Caspar Isenmann's workshop 
that Martin Schongauer served his apprenticeship and received his 
technical training. Martin Schongauer— called also Martin Schon 
and Hubsch Martin — belonged to a patrician family of Augsburg, 
but his father, Caspar Schongauer, became a citizen of Colmar in 
1445, after which date Martin was born. As a boy he doubtless 
learned something of the goldsmith's art from his father; in his 
engravings are several patterns for smoking jars and other small 
articles which suggest familiarity with it. Like Diirer, he turned 
away from it to painting, in which art he probably served his ap- 
prenticeship in the workshop of Caspar Isenmann, by whom he was 
influenced strongly in the direction of realism. An old tradition main- 
tains that Schongauer then went to the Netherlands and studied with 
Roger van der Weyden. This is hardly probable, as Roger died in 
1464; nevertheless Schongauer was strongly influenced by the art of 
the Flemish master. Most of his work was done in Colmar, where 
he gathered about him a large school of painters and engravers. 
Commissions came to him, too, from neighbouring towns; one such 
took him to Breisach, where he died in 1491. 

Of this master's personal appearance we can learn from two 
portraits, the one painted by himself in 1483, in Siena Pinakothek, 
and a later copy by Hans Burgkmair, who worked for a time in his 
atelier, in the Pinakothek in Munich. The Siena portrait shows a 
fine head, with large, brown eyes, short nose, beautifully cut lips and 
strong, curving chin. He is dressed in black, with a fur-lined cloak 
and black cap. On the back of the Munich portrait is written 
"Martin Schongauer, called beautiful Martin on account of his art, 
was born at Colmar, but his parents belonged to an Augsburg family." 
Wimpheling, writing shortly after the artist's death, says that "his 
pictures, on account of their artistic worth, were in demand in Italy, 



THE COLMAR SCHOOL 129 

Spain, France, England and other points of the world." Un- 
fortunately, so few of his paintings are left to us that historians and 
critics cannot form any adequate judgment of his greatness as a 
painter and are in the habit of dwelling, instead, on his distinction as 
one of the world's greatest engravers. 

His best known painting is a work of his youth, the "Madonna in 
the Rose Arbour," in St. Martin's Church in Colmar, dated 1473. 
The Virgin, of a type similar to Roger van der Wey den's, is presented 
rather above life size, seated in an arbour of rose vines, in which 
perch many little, brightly coloured birds. In her arms she holds the 
Christ Child who clings about her neck in very natural, human 
fashion. Her long, full robe, red as the roses blooming all about her, 
falls in graceful folds. She is mature, strong, capable looking but not 
superficially beautiful. The forehead is very high, the face broad, 
with prominent cheek bones, the throat muscular. The eyes, 
however, are large and tender and the abundant hair hangs in heavy, 
wavy masses. The hands are very long with tapering fingers. The 
babe is tall and slender with closely curling hair. The background 
is gold, the drawing sharp and definite almost to hardness. An air of 
pensiveness pervades the picture; mother and child alike seem not to 
think of the beauty about them or of the joyous presence of the two 
angels who hold the crown above the Virgin's head, but rather to be 
sunk in contemplation of the weary burdens the future holds for 
them. Yet through this pensiveness, the realisation of protective 
motherhood, with the tender, human touch of the child's close 
clinging to the mother, makes the dominant impression of the 
picture that of strength, beneficence and repose. 

In the Museum in Colmar is a series of paintings from the 
Passion, from the Last Supper to the Descent of the Holy Spirit, 
with, on the back, scenes from the Life of the Virgin, painted in oils 
and with landscape backgrounds. These pictures are so unequal as 
to make it certain that they were painted by several different artists, 
though they were probably all done in Schongauer's workshop after 
his designs, with here and there some bits executed by the master's 
own hand. The villains recall Caspar Isenmann's, the " Taking down 
from the Cross" is weak and affected, while the "Triumphal Entry" 
is natural and dignified and the group of sleeping disciples in the fine 



130 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART 

landscape of the "Christ in Gethsemane" is worthy of Schongauer 
himself. 

Like Caspar Isenmann's, Schongauer's greatest interest as both 
a painter and engraver was in the natural, realistic presentation of 
things, persons and actions. But this passion for realism was, in his 
works, controlled by a fine sense of proportion and normality which 
was lacking in the older master. He did not make the mistake of con- 
fusing the real with the abnormal. Thus in portraying the tor- 
mentors of Christ, for example, he usually stopped short of the line 
at which simple ugliness ends and deformity or degeneracy begins. 
More and more as his own individuality developed and asserted 
itself was he governed by this sense of proportion in the creation of 
his types and the unfolding of his dramas. The people became more 
refined, the figures less angular and stiff, the personalities less ag- 
gressive or uncompromising, more gifted with the power of attraction 
and charm. So in the Colmar altar representing the Annunciation 
and the Adoration of the Child by the Virgin and St. Anthony, the 
Virgin, though of the type of the Madonna in the Rose Arbour, is 
more youthful looking and charming, the angel is beautiful and the 
grey-bearded St. Anthony possesses fine dignity and distinction. 
At St. Anthony's feet kneels the donor, with the coat-of-arms of 
the D' Orliac family, a member of which was abbot of the mon- 
astery at Isenheim from 1466 to 1490 and is presented in the 
carved section of the Isenheim altar. 

The most beautiful of the Schongauer paintings that are left 
to us is the small "Holy Family" which is in Munich Pinako- 
thek. In the hilly landscape beside the stable in which the Christ 
was born the Virgin is seen playing with her babe, to whom she offers 
a flower culled from among the many that make beautiful the knoll 
on which she is sitting. She is youthful looking and graceful, 
with soft contours and warm colouring and wears voluminous 
robes of bright red. The picture is full of colour and joyousness 
and charm. 

In all Schongauer's work the drawing was his main interest, as was 
natural in an artist whose chief activity was engraving. For, as has 
been said, Schongauer's art is to be most satisfactorily studied and 
most fully appreciated in his engravings. These treat an endless 




Photograph by Franz Hanfstaengl 



MARTIN* SCHONGAUER 
The Nativity 

alte pixakothek, munich 



THE COLMAR SCHOOL 131 

variety of subjects, religious, mythological and from every-day life, 
many of them over and over again, from different viewpoints and with 
ever a fresh interpretation. As the artist developed, the anatomic 
construction of the figures in his pictures and plates gradually received 
less emphasis; they remain strong and muscular but they are more 
refined and graceful in their strength. Their draperies are very full 
and hang in excessively broken folds; their movements are purposeful 
and often dramatic. Schongauer's conceptions are so fresh and power- 
ful, his motifs so original and well-invented, his execution so skilful that 
it is small wonder that his influence was so strongly felt in every Ger- 
man school and in Italy as well. Engravings, too, travel more easily 
than altar-pieces and no doubt extended the knowledge of his art 
farther than it could have reached had he confined his activities to 
painting. Of all the northern engravers before the great master 
of Nuremberg his gifts and influence were the most widely felt; in 
volume of work, depth of insight, imaginative and creative power, 
and truth of presentation, as well as in technical equipment, he 
stands as the greatest German engraver except Durer. 

After Martin Schongauer's death the school in Colmar was carried 
on by his brother Ludwig, who had previously been working in Ulm 
and Augsburg. Of Ludwig's works nothing authentic remains, but 
some pictures have been attributed to him on the ground of their 
resemblance to the works of his brother Martin. 



CHAPTER XVIII 

GERMAN SWITZERLAND 

THE GROUPS OF PAINTERS IN BASEL, BERN AND ZURICH 

BASEL: Hans Herbst — Hans Dyg — Hans Fries — Urs Graf — Jacob 
Klauser — Hans Hug Kluber — Hans Bock — Tobias Stimmer. 
BERN: Master with the Carnation— Nicholas Manuel Deutsch. 
ZURICH : Hans Leu — Hans Asper. 

IN the opening years of the XVI century, Basel, on the border 
between Germany and Switzerland, attracted many artists by 
reason of its great publishing houses, which could always furnish 
them occupation and a means of livelihood in illustrating the new 
editions of the classics, the translations of the Bible and the writings of 
the great reformers. Thus when Hans the Younger and Ambrosius 
Holbein arrived there, they were welcomed into a circle of artists 
with at least one of whom they became intimate, Hans Herbst or 
Herbster, whose portrait Ambrosius painted in 1516. It presents 
a picturesque, intense-looking man, with heavy, dark hair and a 
full beard. Concerning his life, we know that he was born in 
Strassburg in 1468, but became a member of the Guild in Basel 
in 1492. In 1512 he was in Pavia, and doubtless visited other 
centres of art in Italy on this same journey. He became an 
ardent follower of Luther, with such intense convictions that he 
even stopped painting, as did Fra Bartolommeo under the influence 
of the Savonarola revival in Italy, in order not to encourage the 
worship of idols. He suffered imprisonment for heresy and under- 
went many discomforts before he was set at liberty. He died 
in 1550. So interesting and positive is the personality of this 
artist that it seems doubly unfortunate that no authentic works 
from his hand remain; they probably perished in the "picture 
storming" of the Reformation. 

A second member of the Basel group of painters was Hans Dyg, 
who was born in Zurich, but who became a member of the Guild in 
Basel in 1503. In 1519-1520 he painted, in the City Hall, " The Last 

132 



GERMAN SWITZERLAND 133 

Judgment," which has been restored so often that it is quite 
impossible to judge of its original character. 

A third artist, Hans Fries, spent only one year in Basel, 1487- 
1488. He was born in Freiburg in Switzerland in 1465, served his 
apprenticeship in Bern with a Master Heinrich Bechler and, after 
short sojourns in Basel and Colmar, returned to Freiburg where he 
lived until his death in 1518. His altar-piece in the Germanic 
Museum, Nuremberg, painted in 1501, presents the Virgin and 
Child with an Abbot, the Stigmatisation of St. Francis, Virgin and 
St. Anne and Martyrdom of St. Sebastian. The figures are full of 
life and movement, the colouring deep and strong. Two scenes from 
the Life of St. John the Baptist, in Basel Kunstsammlung, show the 
influence of the painter's visit to Colmar: indeed the " St. John writing 
the Book of Revelations" is practically a copy of the Schongauer 
engraving of the same subject. 

A unique personality in this circle of artists was Urs Graf, who 
was born in Solothurn between 1485 and 1490, worked for a time in 
Zurich, then came to Basel, where he married, acquired citizenship, 
and became a member of the Guild in 1512. In 1515 he joined the 
Swiss army against Francis I of France. His whole life was filled 
with adventures, many of which brought him into difficulties with the 
courts-of-law. He died about 1536. 

Urs Graf is known to us, not through his paintings, but through 
his many drawings for wood cuts. His only authentic painting is a 
small allegorical picture in Basel Kunsthalle, representing the terrors 
of war. Mars and Bellona, seated on the clouds, are pouring fire 
upon the world below, where, on one side, a battle is in progress, on the 
other, captives are being tortured. The drawing of the small 
figures is done with a sure hand, the characterisation is positive and 
realistic enough. His favourite subject in his drawings, most of which 
are in Basel Kunsthalle, is the life of the Lanzknecht, a figure bold, 
dashing and gay to the point of coarseness, whom he presents over 
and over again with evident delight, standing in various poses, 
marching with a banner inscribed "All my money lost in play," 
thieving, caressing a maiden, or as an irresponsible person whose 
leading strings are held by the devil. Among the drawings are 
also scenes from the Bible and from the legends of the saints, in 



134 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART 

which the people are given, in the main, the same characteristics as 
the Lanzknechte and their country lasses. 

To the second half of the XVI century belonged Jacob Klauser, 
who was born in Zurich but became a member of the Guild in Basel in 
1547. Of interest, mainly, it must be confessed, because of its 
subject, is his portrait of Boniface Amerbach, in Basel Kunst- 
sammlung, which was painted in 1557. 

A native of Basel was Hans Hug Kluber, who was born about 
1535, and died in 1578. Three pictures from his hand in the Kunst- 
sammlung there, the "Birth of Christ" and portraits of Hans 
Rispach and his wife Barbara, show the influence of Holbein, as do 
the works of Hans Bock (1545-1623) by whom are the portraits of 
Melchior Hornlocher and his wife Katherine, and a small picture, 
" Hercules strangling the Serpent," in Basel Kunstsammlung. 

An artist who does not properly belong to this circle of artists, 
but who shows the influence of Holbein in his life-like and very 
expressive portraits is Tobias Stimmer (1539-1583) of Schaffhausen, 
who also worked for a time in Strassburg. In Basel Kunst- 
sammlung are his interesting portraits of Jacob Schwitzer and his 
wife Elsbeth, painted in 1564. 

In Bern, too, there was a small but interesting school of painters 
in the closing years of the XV and the first half of the XVI century. 
The chief work of the master who, from his use of the flower 
instead of a monogram, has been named the Master with the Carna- 
tion, is a series of scenes from the Legends of St. John the Baptist, in 
Bern Museum and in Buda-Pesth, which present a curious combination 
of archaic with modern, naturalistic elements. The backgrounds are 
gold, but the people are given with considerable fidelity to life. The 
painter seems to have taken delight in picturing the gorgeously 
robed king, the men, the one blind woman, the elegant dame with 
the lap dog, who are listening to the preaching of St. John, and 
especially the quaint little figure of Salome, with the heavy braids of 
hair bound about her head, dressed as a highly respectable 
German girl of the middle class and dancing a most modest 
little dance before an exceedingly sedate king and queen, who are 
seated at their simple supper, their dog cracking bones on the floor 
beside them. This naive literalness in all his pictures makes them at 



HVLJJ 



T)VM PATMC QlVA.RO PER DOG? ■ \NCTA SALVTEM , 

iNOPvATO PATBJAL GA%SVS AB ENS.E GADO , 



CBTIT ANO DNI,M,D;XXXl.bCDOB,X 
ALTATIS SVPL. XLVlll, hK 




Courtesy of the City Library, Zurich 



HANS ASPER 

Portrait of Zwixgli 
city library, zurich 



GERMAN SWITZERLAND 135 

least entertaining. The colours are bright with much gold, which the 
artist doubtless believed would contribute elegance to his scenes. 

The greatest master of the Swiss School was Nicholas Manuel 
Deutsch, who lived in Bern from 1484 to 1530. It is generally 
believed that his father was an Italian, Emmanuel da Alemannia, 
and that the name Deutsch was but a German translation of the 
Italian family name. That Nicholas Manuel spent his Wander jahre 
in Italy, probably in Padua, is suggested by the wealth of Renaissance 
ornament in such an early work as his altar in Bern Museum repre- 
senting the Birth of the Virgin and St. Luke Painting the Madonna. 
His work is very unequal in quality. Thus the small picture of the 
Beheading of John the Baptist, in Basel Kunstsammlung, is painted 
with exquisite fineness and care, while those of the Virgin and 
St. Anne, St. James and St. Roch with plague-stricken petitioners 
are careless in execution and inharmonious in colour. The artist 
seems to have taken special pleasure in painting allegorical pictures 
which, whether designedly or not, are very amusing; as, for example, 
The "Judgment of Paris," in Basel Kunstsammlung, in which the 
the hero is a Lanzknecht whose decision the damsels await in a most 
entertaining variety of costumes and of humours. 

As a fresco-painter his chief work was the "Dance of Death" 
in forty-six pictures painted between 1517 and 1522 for the Dominican 
Monastery in Bern, copies of which are in the Historical Museum 
there. They represent the Fall of Adam and the consequent entrance 
of Death into the world, Death approaching people of every station, 
and Death preaching. Each group of figures is placed in a sort of 
arcade, through which a glimpse is also given of a landscape in the 
background. 

Nicholas Manuel's drawings are numerous, and form an interest- 
ing commentary on the life of the time. In his sketchbook, in Basel 
Kunsthalle, we find subjects from the Bible, the legends of the saints, 
and the life of the period, all given with much familiarity and with 
types taken from his own circle of acquaintance. 

During the last years of his life the artist devoted his time and 
energy largely to the cause of the Reformation. His portrait of 
himself in Bern Museum shows a pale, delicate-looking man with 
tired blue eyes, prominent nose, finely cut lips and a sparse beard. A 



136 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART 

son of Nicholas Manuel Deutsch, Hans Rudolph Manuel (Deutsch) 
was also an artist. From his hand are many drawings, wood cuts 
and designs for glass windows, in Basel Kunsthalle. 

The works of the Zurich painter Hans Leu, who fell in the 
battle on the Zugerberg in 1531, reveal the influence of Grtinewald in 
such measure that his "St. Jerome" and "Cephalus mourning over 
Procris," in Basel Kunstsammlung, were, in the Amerbach catalogue, 
ascribed to " Griinewald or Leu." In both of these pictures the 
phantastic lighting is the chief interest. In his "Orpheus charming 
Animals with his Music," which is dated 1519, the landscape and the 
lighting also suggest the influence of the master of the Isenheim 
Altar. 

Into the second half of the XVI century in Zurich, as late as 
1571, worked Hans Asper, who painted the flags and coats-of-arms on 
the city gates and towers and who held the title of City Painter. 
His fame to-day rests chiefly on his portraits and especially on those 
of Zwingli and of Zwingli's daughter, painted in 1549 and now in 
Zurich Library. That of the great Swiss reformer presents him 
in three-quarter length, wearing a black robe and cap and holding a 
Bible open at the words "Come unto me all ye that labor and are 
heavy laden, and I will give you rest." 

The schools of art in German Switzerland were not marked by 
distinct originality. They developed late and entirely under the 
influence of other artists and schools, especially of Holbein and the 
Italians. No Swiss School, therefore, ever attained a position of first 
importance or influence, except in so far as Basel could lay a certain 
claim to Hans Holbein, who, however, belonged by birth and training 
to Augsburg. 



CHAPTER XIX 

ULM 

THE STORY-TELLERS OF THE XV CENTURY 

Hans Multscher — Hans Schiihlein — Bartolommaus Zeitblom — Hans Maler 
zu Schwaz — Martin Schaffner — Master of Sigmaringen. 

TIE first of Ulm's story -tellers in colour, Hans Multscher, is 
realistic in a degree surprising for the period in which he 
worked. In order to make his scenes as vivid as possible he 
pictures them with the household equipment and costumes belonging 
to his own day, and, in an obvious effort to compel our attention, 
exaggerates the expressions and gestures of his people to the point of 
pantomime. The types he introduces in his pictures are not always 
attractive and are apt to belong in a decidedly ordinary and often- 
times vulgar social strata, while their familiar actions are by no 
means marked by refinement or reserve. The settings are of the 
simplest, most plebeian kind, there is no beauty in the very elemen- 
tal landscapes with their gold backgrounds, or the inelegant and un- 
skilfully rendered materials in the garments and draperies. But 
there is an attraction in the roominess, the fine feeling for space in 
most of the pictures and in the colouring, which, though it cannot be 
called really beautiful or particularly harmonious, has its own charm 
in a certain silveriness of tone which is possibly due in part to the 
predominance in the robes of pale blue with white lights. 

Hans Multscher was born in 1400 in Reichenhofen near Leutkirk, 
but became a citizen of Ulm and received a concession exempting his 
property from taxation in 1427. In 1457 he was in Sterzing in Tyrol 
where one of his largest and most important works still remains. 
He died about 1467. 

Representative of his style and development are the eight 
scenes from the Life of Christ, in Berlin Gallery, from an altar- 
piece painted in 1437, and the scenes from the Life of the Virgin on 
the large Sterzing Altar, painted twenty years later. 

The Berlin "Annunciation" shows the Child in swaddling clothes 

137 



138 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART 

in a basket just within a thatched shed. Behind him are ox and ass; 
on the inside wall of the shed are books, on the outer wall bread and 
a pitcher of wine. The Virgin, of Swabian type, is kneeling with 
both hands raised as if in joyous wonder; beside her is Joseph, a 
simple, kindly looking peasant, who uses a staff and whose hands 
are encased in heavy gloves to protect them against the cold of 
the winter morning. Over a board fence look all the neighbours. 
They are very plain in appearance and in dress, but their expres- 
sions reveal great interest in the scene before them, at which one 
of the young men of the company is pointing, rather unneces- 
sarily, it would seem. 

On a hill to the left, in a bit of landscape evidently set in the 
gold background for that very purpose, rude looking shepherds are 
hearing the glad news from an angel; three other angels of con- 
siderable beauty are singing on the roof of the shed. 

In the Passion scenes the Christ type is rather undersized, with 
short chin and very round eyes; considerable stress is laid on the 
bones and muscles, but the forms under the garments reveal little 
skill in modelling. The tormentors of the Holy One are excessively 
vulgar and repellent, several of them, indeed, with vacant eyes and 
wide, leering mouths, even idiotic looking. Especially repulsive are 
the stunted children, who, in the "Bearing the Cross," throw stones 
at the Christ. Even his own followers, John and the mourning 
women, are not marked by any great delicacy or nobility of type; 
while Pilate's wife and her friend, in the "Christ before Pilate," 
have nothing of the patrician in their appearance or bearing. 

Of greater refinement is the Christ type in the "Resurrection," 
which otherwise is pictured with singular helplessness of perspective 
and great literalness of interpretation. Out of the sealed tomb, 
which is set in curious fashion against the side of a rock in a fenced 
garden with trees, the Christ is in the act of rising; one leg has not 
yet been pulled through the stone. A red mantle is about his shoul- 
ders and his right hand is raised in blessing. On the ground the 
guards are sleeping; one has half fallen over with his back to us, 
overcome by weariness; another, open mouthed, leans on his hand at 
the end of the tomb, and a very natural looking old man with deep 
wrinkles across the back of his neck — no guard surely, but a simple 




Photograph by th 



olographic Society 

HANS MLXTSCHER 

The Resurrection 
kaiser friedrich museum, berlin 




Photograph hy Frier!. Hoe/lc, Augsburg 



HANS SCHUHLEIN 

Scenes prom the Passion of Christ 
high altar in the chi rc h in tiefenbronn 



ULM 139 

countryman ! — in citizen's dress, sits on a saddle-bag with his 
back to us, his hat over his eyes, a veritable note of genre in the 
picture. 

A greater degree of refinement marks the pictures in Sterzing. 
The "Annunciation" presents, in the interior of a plain room with 
square windows opening out on a grove of trees and a gold sky, an 
attractive Virgin with flowing hair and long, simply draped robes, to 
whom the angel, who has entered by the doorway into the adjoining 
room to the left, on lightly bended knee, appears to hand the scroll 
on which his greeting is written. The sense of space and the sim- 
plicity and quietness of the scene are reposeful and beneficent. The 
"Nativity," in a large wooden stable, introduces the intimate, un- 
dignified detail of Joseph, who has pulled off his shoes, proceeding to 
dry and warm his feet while the Virgin kneels before the Babe. 
The kings in the "Adoration" are utterly unaristocratic in appear- 
ance and manners; among the apostles in the "Death of the Virgin" 
are some beautiful types, but they seem less sincere, more affected, 
than the rude peasants and fishermen with whom they are 
associated. 

In the Passion scenes, from the backs of the wings in Sterzing, 
the hand of a pupil under the influence of the art of the Netherlands 
is evident; occasionally, however, a quite beautiful figure is intro- 
duced, as that of the angel who presents the chalice to Christ in the 
"Garden of Gethsemane." 

From the shrine of the Sterzing Altar there remain, also, 
some of the wood-carved figures from Multscher's hand, which in 
attractiveness of types and in the grace of the draperies, excel his 
painted pictures. That the artist was indeed almost as active in 
wood carving as in painting is evident from the "Triumphal 
Entry" in Cloister Wittenhausen, the "Man of Sorrows" in Schrie- 
sheim, the "Virgin and Trinity," in Ulm. Several figures of saints 
and warriors bear witness that he was also a sculptor in stone. 

In Hans Multscher's workshop studied Hans Schuhlein — or 
Schuchlein — -who was born in Ulm about 1440. A visit to Colmar 
during his Wander jahre left its mark on his art ever afterward, for, 
though its spirit always remained Swabian, some of his types and 
many of his motifs were borrowed from Schongauer. From Colmar 
he seems to have proceeded to Nuremberg, where he made his imp res- 



140 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART 

sions of Schongauer felt in Wolgemut's workshop and was himself in- 
fluenced, in turn, by the Nuremberg master. After his return to Ulm 
he became a member of St. Luke's Guild in 1493 and was appointed, 
in 1497, chief architect of the Cathedral, a post which he held until 
1502. He died in 1505. 

SchUhlein's most important work is the High Altar painted in 
1469 for that little memorial church of the Gemmingen family in the 
village of Tiefenbronn, in which is also Lucas Moser's interesting St. 
Mary Magdalen Altar. It is a large and attractive carved Gothic 
altar, with, in the shrine, in wood carving, the Descent from the 
Cross, the Pieta and four standing saints, and overhead, the Crucified 
One with the Virgin and St. John. On the inner sides of the wings, set 
also under carved Gothic arches, are painted Christ before Pilate, 
the Cross Bearing, Entombment and Resurrection; on the outer sides, 
the Annunciation, Visitation, Nativity and Adoration. 

In the four scenes from the Life of the Virgin the types are 
rather similar to those in Multscher's pictures on the Sterzing Altar; 
though not particularly elegant or patrician in appearance or dress, 
they are not coarse. The background of each scene is a landscape, 
of which the most individual and interesting is that of the Visita- 
tion, which presents, in a rolling country, a high-gabled, red-roofed, 
German house, beside the door of which Zachariah awaits the 
coming of the two women. The colouring is brown in tone and is 
heavier than Hans Multscher's. 

In the scenes from the Passion the people are of greater slender- 
ness and delicacy of build and greater emotional sensitiveness. 
Here and there such types as the Christ in the Cross Bearing and 
the woman wearing the white headdress, in the group behind the 
grave in the Entombment, recall Wolgemut, while the motifs of 
Christ supporting his knee against a stone and the group of women 
in the middle distance in the Cross Bearing are taken direct from 
Schongauer's engraving of the same subject. The actors in these 
scenes wear more elegant garments than those in the Life of the 
Virgin, with a brown and gold brocade as a favourite material. They 
are restless and nervously tense in their endeavour to convey the 
reality of the tragedy in which they are sharers, but so unimposing 
are they physically, so devoid of positive personality, that they fail 




Photograph by Fried. Hocfle, Augsburg 



BARTOLOMMAUS ZEITBLOM 

The Annunciation 

royal gallery, stuttgart 



ULM 141 

to impress us deeply. They are sincere and unaffected; their emo- 
tions are real; but they are excitable types who would respond all 
too readily to any emotional appeal, although by nature incapable 
of great depth of feeling, of overwhelming passion or of profound 
grief. 

Hans Schuhlein's most famous pupil was Bartolommaus Zeit- 
blom, who was born in Xordlingen about 1450 but who later moved 
to Dim, where he married Schuhlein's daughter in 14S3 and, about the 
same time, acquired citizenship. In 1487 he and his wife spent some 
time in Kirchheim, where he suffered imprisonment for giving food 
and other aid to the nuns of St. John the Baptist's Cloister. In 1499 
his name appears beside his father-in-law's as Senator from the Guild 
to the Council of Ulm; he died about 1519. 

Though the latest of the fifteenth century painters in Ulm, 
Zeitblom was the least affected by those new ideals and developments 
in art which had their root in the Netherlands, which Multscher had 
felt in some degree and by which whatever individuality Schtihlein 
originally possessed was almost completely dominated. So little, 
indeed, did he heed them that he seems at times archaic. It is true 
that the forms of his people are larger than the usual Swabian type, 
are constructed with due regard to bone and sinew and are quite well 
modelled. But the backgrounds of his pictures are, for the most 
part, gold; when the scene is laid in the interior of a room, 
as in the Legends of St. Valentine, they are of stone with no 
outlook. His people wear garments so slightly draped that they 
hang in almost straight folds, exceedingly simple, though most grace- 
ful. Their faces are rather long and finely oval, with delicate fea- 
tures; their blonde hair is apt to be worn perfectly straight or with 
but the faintest wave; their attitudes are remarkably quiet, their 
expressions calm. Sometimes, as in the Annunciation painted for 
the church in Heerberg and now in Stuttgart Gallery, the beauty of 
the Virgin and the angel, the graceful simplicity of their robes, the 
quiet distinction of their bearing creates an atmosphere of still so- 
lemnity which envelops the spectator also and communicates to him 
something of its exaltation. In the "Vera Icon," in Berlin Gallery, 
from the predella of the altar painted for the Parish Church in 
Eschach in 1495, the grace and restraint of the sorrowing angels 



142 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART 

and the lovely lines of the drapery call to mind the Italian painter 
Francia. 

But when we turn to his more impassioned scenes, as those from 
the Life of St. Valentine, in Augsburg Gallery, or those from the Life 
of St. John the Baptist and from the Life and Passion of Christ, on 
the High Altar of the church in the picturesque little village of Blau- 
beuren in the Swabian Hills, those characteristics which, in quietly 
sentimental scenes or in, for example, the standing figures of St. 
Martha and St. Ursula in Munich Pinakothek, appear to indicate a 
noble, aristocratic calm, suddenly seem to be nothing more than 
stiffness and woodenness. In the most animated or tragic scenes 
his people remain unmoved, almost expressionless; they are utterly 
powerless to convey the significance of the representation. In the 
presence of such pictures we cannot but suspect that his stately 
forms with their remarkable restraint and stillness reveal a certain 
emptiness of mind and heart and imagination and that his conser- 
vatism conceals a lack of power. Yet we do not forget that a few 
of the pictures he has given us are lovely enough to be treasured 
without question, simply for the pleasure their beauty brings. 

A pupil of Zeitblom was Hans von Ulm, who removed from there 
to the rich mining town of Schwaz, near Innsbruck, and who is, 
therefore, generally spoken of as Hans Maler zu Schwaz. He won 
such fame as a portrait painter that many commissions came to 
him from the patrician families of Innsbruck and Vienna. Indeed, 
before his proper name was discovered he was called, from several 
portraits of members of the Welzer family, which are now in 
Vienna Gallery, "The Master of the Welzer Portraits." He won 
the favour of Ferdinand of Hapsburg, whose portrait he painted, 
and by whom he was commissioned to copy earlier portraits of the 
Emperor Maximilian and Maria of Burgundy. 

He does not seek to reveal the character or personality of a 
subject, but gives a quite literal record of the external appear- 
ance. Such a portrait as that of Ulrich Fugger, of the famous 
Augsburg family of bankers, which was painted in 1525 and 
which is now in the Alt man Collection, in the Metropolitan 
Museum, New York, reveals all the artist's peculiarities. Like 
almost all pictures painted by him, it is a bust portrait, in 




Courtesy of the Alt man Gallery 

HANS MALER 

POFTRAIT OF COUNT UlRICH FuGGER OF AuGSBrRG 
METROPOLITAN MLSEtM OF ART, SEW YORK 




Photograph by Franz Hanfstaengl 

MARTIN SCHAFPNER 

Annunciation 
alte pinakothek, munich 



ULM 143 

which the sitter is seen three-quarters to the left. It presents 
the banker at thirty-five years of age, against a light blue back- 
ground, and wearing a black coat, white collar open in front and 
a brown skull-cap. Xo great amount of attention is bestowed 
upon the details. A suggestion of the influence of Bernhard 
Strigel, the painter's fellow-pupil in Zeitblom's workshop, is felt 
in the picture, especially in the flesh tones, which are light, yel- 
lowish and waxy. The artist has a peculiar trick of setting the 
eyes slanting. He paints the hair of head and beard with con- 
siderable minuteness. The drawing is old-fashioned but assured 
and marked by a fine sweep of line. 

In the works of Martin Schaffner, who was born in Ulm about 
1480 and who worked there until almost the middle of the sixteenth 
century, Italian influence is very pronounced. His altar-pieces are 
of remarkably large dimensions and permit of his presenting his 
scenes on a much bigger scale than is usual with his contemporaries. 
To his earliest period belongs the altar in Sigmaringen Gallery repre- 
senting five scenes from the Life of Christ, in which the plain people 
with their rather expressionless features are less interesting than 
the materials in the garments, especially the velvets and furs, which 
are very beautifully painted. 

Schaffner's greatest work is the High Altar in Ulm Cathedral, 
which was painted in 1520. The shrine is filled with wood carving; on 
the wings are the Holy Kinship and on the outer sides Saints Erhard, 
John the Baptist, Barbara and Dieppold. To the left are the 
Virgin and Child with the small St. John, who, in form and in his 
little gauze drapery, resembles a Donatello putto; through a window 
behind the Virgin there looks in upon the group a man with long 
white hair and a cape of grey fur, who is so individual, even peculiar 
looking, that he must have been portrayed direct from life. To 
the right are Alpheus, a rather pompous gentleman, his wife, who is 
nursing her babe, and three other sturdy children. In the back- 
ground stretches a wide landscape. 

Very imposing, doubtless in part because of their unusually 
large dimensions, are the four wings of the High Altar from Cloister 
Wettenhausen, near Ulm, which were painted in 1523 and 1524 and 
are now in Munich Pinakothek. The first scene, the Annunciation, 



144 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART 

takes place in an ornate Renaissance room, in the decoration of which 
there are still some Gothic details. The Virgin, whose long reddish- 
brown hair falls about her shoulders, and whose very full draperies 
are spread in many folds, kneels to receive the large angel who enters 
through the portico to the left. In the sky overhead, in a conven- 
tionalised, coloured cloud, is God the Father, from whom, in a ray of 
light, proceed the Dove and the Child. Behind a curtain another 
room opens where a small angel is smoothing the pillows of a great, 
canopied bed. Nor are the possibilities of perspective yet exhausted. 
Another room opens in the rear of that one, and to the left, at the 
door of a house on the opposite side of the street, Elizabeth is seen 
welcoming Mary, who has come to visit her. 

In the next scene, the Presentation in the Temple, we look into 
the interior of a great Renaissance church. On the altar are a shrine 
and two tall candle sticks; from behind it several priests are advanc- 
ing bearing other candlesticks; from a balcony overhead two people 
look down upon the scene which is transpiring in the foreground, 
where the gorgeously robed High Priest holds the Child, the Virgin 
makes the offering of the doves, two women kneel on the mosaic 
floor and others of the company are entering between the marble 
columns. Through the door we catch a glimpse of a landscape with 
a stately tree and a castle tower as its most prominent features. 
The people in these two pictures are all large and dignified 
with quite regular features and very full robes. Their expression 
is, however, so lacking in animation that they appear stolid and 
unresponsive. 

In the third scene, the Descent of the Holy Spirit, this lack is 
still more evident. The apostles stand open-mouthed but they are 
inwardly unmoved; the perspective in the scene and the view into 
the street along which people are walking were manifestly of as much 
importance to the artist as the miracle. 

The realisation of the grief of these same disciples, in the Death 
of the Virgin, is also beyond the artist's powers. According to 
Swabian tradition, the dying Virgin is kneeling, supported by an 
apostle. All the accessories are given interestingly enough, but 
genuine, convincing emotion is lacking. The colouring in all these 
pictures is a warm golden brown in tone and so perfectly are all the 



ULM 145 

local colours blended into this tone that it requires attention to dis- 
tinguish them. 

One of the most interesting of the artist's works is a portrait in 
the sacristy of Ulm Cathedral, dated 1516, which presents, in half 
length, against a green and gold brocaded background, the burgo- 
master of the city, Eitel Besserer, an imposing looking man with 
penetrating blue eyes and a full grey beard, who wears a cap and wide 
collar of fur. The brocade, the fur, the hair of the beard and the fine 
texture of the skin are so remarkably rendered, the head is so finely 
rounded and the expression so keen and lifelike that the portrait is 
one of rare beauty. 

An anonymous painter who worked in the opening years of the 
XVI century has been named from his works in the Gallery of Prince 
Hohenzollern's Castle in that place, the Master of Sigmaringen. The 
largest number of pictures from his hand are, however, in the neigh- 
bouring Donaueschingen, at the source of the Danube. Among 
them are ten panels which have a curious history. A peasant in 
the Black Forest became very ill and called Dr. Rehniann from the 
nearest town, Donaueschingen. The physician was greatly struck 
by the remarkable bed on which his patient was lying, on every 
board of which were painted dingy, old, religious scenes or figures 
of saints. When the peasant recovered, the doctor asked, in lieu 
of fee, that he might be given the bed. On examination, it was 
found that it was built of the panels of a large altar by the 
Master of Sigmaringen, and that there were represented on them 
various scenes from the Life of the Virgin, and the standing figures 
of Saints Florian, George, Joachim, Martin, Sebastian, and other 
saints. Dr. Rehmann caused the various panels to be restored to 
their original estate and, at his death, bequeathed them to Prince 
Fiirstenberg for Donaueschingen Gallery 7 . 

Like all the works of the Master of Sigmaringen, these reveal in 
a marked degree the influence of the art of the Netherlands or of 
a conception of it which the artist derived from the paintings of 
such a Swabian painter as Friedrich Herlin who was then work- 
ing in the neighbouring town of Nordlingen. The people are tall 
and strongly built, with prominent cheek-bones and red cheeks, 
low foreheads, large, round eyes and heavy hair which, on the 



146 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART 

men, is almost always slightly dishevelled. Their fingers curve 
pronouncedly and sometimes rather affectedly, their feet are 
strangely shaped, with thick balls, and straight toes set very 
close together. The colours are bright and not very happily 
blended. There is, indeed, little that is pleasing about this master's 
large, plain people who lack refinement and who possess no attrac- 
tions except strength, who are seldom represented as active about 
anything or even as greatly interested in anything in particular, 
and who are given without any especial beauty of accessories or 
of colouring. In almost all his pictures the painter retains the 
archaic gold background and with it, sometimes, as in the Don- 
aueschingen "Presentation of the little Virgin in the Temple," a 
naive frankness of faith which invests the picture with a certain 
charm. 



CHAPTER XX 
SWABIA 

THE ARTISTIC DEPENDAXCIES OF ULM 

Nordlingen : Friedrich Herlin — Sebastian Deig. 
Rothenburg: Martin Schwarz. 
Memmingen: Bernhard Strigel. 

TO Ulm Nordlingen may be said to owe her share in the art 
life of the German Renaissance, for from Ulm there came to 
Nordlingen the painter Friedrich Herlin. It would appear 
that he did not come directly, however, but made a stay of some 
length in Rothenburg, as, in the document conferring citizenship in 
Nordlingen upon him in 1467, he is named "Master Friedrich Herlin 
of Rothenburg. " 

The earliest notice of the painter, in the records of Ulm, is dated 
1449; the latest, in Nordlingen, 1499. His earliest dated work is 
the High Altar for St. George's Church in Nordlingen, which was 
begun in 1462. Only the pictures on the back of the shrine, repre- 
senting scenes from the Passion, are still in the church; the rest of the 
altar, separated into its several pictures, has been removed to the 
Municipal Museum. The inner sides of the wings present six scenes 
from the Childhood of Christ, the outer sides, three scenes from the 
Legend of St. George, two from the Legend of St. Mary Magdalen, 
with St. Dorothea, St. Barbara and the family of the donor, Jacob 
Fuchshart. 

Tradition has it that Herlin was invited to Nordlingen because 
"he knew how to paint in the fashion of the artists of the Nether- 
lands" and, in truth, the most casual glance at this altar will reveal 
that there was no artist of the second half of the XV century who was 
more completely dominated by their influence. The work is done 
with great care; the street, the architectural features, the interiors, 
the still-life are all given in the perspective and with the minute 
detail of the school of the Van Eycks. The materials are finely 
realised; the robes of the saints have the texture and lustre of real 

147 



148 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART 

velvets, silks and brocades. The colouring is also that of the 
Flemish painters, deep and strong, occasionally, to the point of 
heaviness; the light is the full light of day. The spirit of the 
scenes is matter of fact; imagination, and even play of fancy are 
altogether lacking. 

Very similar in subject and in treatment are the scenes from the 
Childhood of Christ on the inner sides of the wings of the High Altar 
in St. Jacob's Church, Rothenburg, which were painted in 1466. 
The outer sides of the wings have been entirely painted over. Four 
of the same scenes, the Annunciation, Nativity, Adoration and Pre- 
sentation, are pictured again in the wings of the altar in St. George's 
Church in Dinkelsbiihl, which was painted about the same time, or 
in 1467. 

The next year, 1468, he painted the "Man of Sorrows," now in 
Nordlingen Museum, which exceeds in realism even the Passion 
scenes on the back of the High Altar in St. George's. The Christ 
is commonplace and unimpressive, but the representation possesses 
a vigour which amounts almost to violence. 

Herlin seems to have been held in high repute throughout all 
the country round about Nordlingen and many of the larger parish 
churches contain works from his hand. Not only did he do impor- 
tant altar-pieces for Rothenburg and Dinkelsbiihl, but also for the 
neighbouring village of Bopfingen, where the Nativity and Ador- 
ation, on the inner sides of the wings of the High Altar in St. 
Blasius's Church, are among his most attractive works. The 
types are, as always, those of the painters of the Netherlands, the 
poses are often artificial, but the drawing is less sharp than in 
his earlier works, the forms are less angular and muscular, the 
faces softer in contour and the colours, though still dark, are 
glowing. The scenes from the Legend of St. Blasius, on the 
outer sides of the wings, are the work of a pupil and are quite 
inferior. 

The artist's masterpiece is the great altar in Nordlingen 
Museum which was painted in 1488 and represents the Madonna 
and Child with St. Luke, St. Margaret and donors. The Virgin, 
who is enthroned against a background of brown, brocaded tap- 
estry, held by white-robed angels, is of the same type as in Hans 




Photograph by Franz Han/staenal 

BERNHARD STRIGEL 

Portrait of Emperor Maximilian 
royal gallery, augsburg 



SWABIA 149 

Memling's pictures; she wears a long, red robe with lining of 
green, and on her head a jewelled diadem. The Child is reaching 
out for the book held by St. Luke, who is recommending for special 
grace a kneeling donor and his four sons. On the other side St. 
Margaret performs the same mediatory office for the donor's wife 
and five daughters, who kneel stiffly in their modish costumes, 
their fair, reddish hair in heavy braids. The symbols of the saints, 
in miniature, are placed on the back of the throne; hi the back- 
ground is a city street. A personal interest attaches to this 
picture, as the donors are doubtless the painter himself and his 
family, for whom, naturally, St. Luke the painter-apostle would 
intercede. The wings of the altar contain the Holy Night, and 
Christ disputing with the Lawyers in the Temple; in these the 
people are very plain and the colouring is heavy. 

There was, perhaps, no German artist of the second half of the 
XV century, when all German artists were influenced in some degree 
by the art of the Netherlands, who yielded to that influence so ab- 
solutely as did Friedrich Herlin. But though he adopts Memling's 
types, he seldom fails to make them plain, ordinary in appearance 
and mental equipment and unattractive in expression; and though he 
renders materials with much naturalness he rarely succeeds in call- 
ing forth our admiration for their beauty, because his colouring is 
so dark and heavy. 

A painter who worked in Nordlingen as late as 1575 was Sebas- 
tian Deig (Daig or Teig) who was a pupil of Schaufelein during his 
residence in Nordlingen from 1515 to 1540, but who turned away from 
his master's ideal of beauty to fall into crude and sometimes vulgar 
realism. The many pictures from his hand in Nordlingen Museum 
possess nothing that appeals to the lover of art; the types are plain, 
the colouring brown and heavy, the interpretation ordinary and un- 
inspired. His most interesting work is an altar in St. George's 
Church, Dinkelsbuhl, which sets forth, in small scenes, the Martyrdom 
of the Saints. In these there are almost no suggestions of the revolt- 
ing realism of his later works. The people are, for the most part, 
very youthful and their expressions childlike; the costumes are a 
complete commentary on the fashions of the age. Any attractive- 
ness these pictures might possess is seriously detracted from, however, 
by the dulness and lifelessness of their colouring. 



150 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART 

Besides the visiting artist Friedrich Herlin, Rothenburg pos- 
sessed a painter all her own, Martin Schwarz, who is known to have 
been living there in 1480. Judging by his types and his manner of 
presenting his subjects, he received his training in the School of Ulm. 
Of his few remaining works, the most interesting are the four wings 
of an altar in the Germanic Museum, Nuremberg, which present, on 
the outer sides, the Annunciation, Holy Night, Adoration of the 
Kings, and Death of the Virgin; on the inner sides, four scenes from 
the Passion. The stories are told simply and delightfully; the people 
are refined and very attractive. The Annunciation, for example, 
shows, against a gold ground, a very youthful Virgin, seated in 
an elaborately carved chair, addressed by a graceful angel with 
ringleted hair. The many details which are introduced, as the 
chair and book-rest, slippers and flowers, are given with loving 
exactness. 

On the other hand, such scenes as the death of the Virgin or 
those from the Passion are quite beyond the artist's ability; he does 
not possess the dramatic power to make them impressive. His gift 
is for telling cheerful stories about attractive people, with naive 
faithfulness to detail and unfailing charm of manner. 

In the neighbouring town of Memmingen, too, art in its devel- 
opment was influenced by the School of Ulm. The artists there all 
belonged to one family, the Strigels. The oldest member of it, 
Johann Strigel, is mentioned in 1433 as "painter, of Memmingen." 
In 1442 he painted the altar for the church in Zell, representing the 
Virgin adoring the Christ Child, and Saints. Four panels which 
were also, probably, at one time in that church were discovered a few 
years ago in the house of a peasant in the neighbourhood, by an artist 
who was painting there, and were sold to the National Museum in 
Munich. On each panel are two saints, tall and slender and very 
fair, with round, childish faces and blond hair. The female saints 
wear white veils and very curious, small, round, blue caps; their 
robes hang in parallel folds and their mantles are draped to fall in set 
ripples which show the contrasting colour of the fining. The favourite 
colours are deep, bright blue, red, yellow and white. 

A son of Johann Strigel was Ivo Strigel, whose chief authentic 



SWABIA 151 

work is an altar in Basel Historical Museum with saints, evangelists 
and the Archangel Michael, who holds a parchment scroll on which is 
written "Ivo Strigel, 1512." 

A Klaus Strigel painted on two wings of an altar in the Lieb- 
frauenkirche in Munich, the saints Urban and Achatius. The figures 
are undersized; the colouring is cool like Zeitblom's but the garments 
are less simply and beautifully draped. 

By far the greatest artist of them all was Bernhard Strigel, who 
was born in Memmingen about 1461 and died in 1528. About 1480 
he went to Ulm to study with Zeitblom; in 1506 he was established 
in Memmingen and shortly became so famous that he was appointed 
court painter to the Emperor Maximilian, in whose service he 
visited Augsburg, Innsbruck and Vienna. 

A characteristic altar-piece is the one in Berlin Gallery which 
was painted in 1515 and contains four scenes from the Life of the 
Virgin — the Birth, Presentation, Visitation, and Death. The people 
portrayed in these scenes are natural and spontaneous in their 
attitudes and movements, though seldom endowed with either 
beauty or distinction. All the legendary happenings are interpreted 
in terms of everyday life and with considerable detail, so that the 
pictures are interesting, from the standpoint of the history of cul- 
ture, as faithful reflections of domestic life in Germany in the latter 
half of the XV century. 

But Bernhard Strigel's fame rests rather on his skill as a por- 
traitist than as a painter of altar-pieces. As court painter, he natur- 
ally did several portraits of the Emperor. There are his portraits 
of Maximilian as a young man, in Vienna, Strassburg and Munich; 
a portrait in more mature years, in Vienna, where is also a family 
group consisting of the Emperor, his wife, Maria of Burgundy, his 
son Philip and his grandsons Ferdinand I, Charles V, and Ludwig II 
of Hungary. On account of their refined yet broad treatment, and 
their beautiful, harmonious colouring, some of the best of Strigel's 
portraits, as that of Count John H of Montfort, in Donaueschingen 
Gallery, and the group of Conrad Relinger, Patrician of Augsburg, 
and his eight children, in Munich Pinakothek, were long attributed to 
Holbein. 



CHAPTER XXI 

AUGSBURG 

HANS HOLBEIN THE ELDER 

THE rich city of Augsburg was not only the most important 
art centre in Swabia but was, in all Germany, second only to 
Nuremberg in its artistic fame and influence. Apparently art 
did not, however, develop so early there as in Cologne or Nuremberg, 
for no works remain to us from the fourteenth or even from the first 
half of the fifteenth century. To the second half of the fifteenth 
century belongs the painted ceiling which was taken from the guild 
room of the Weaver's House and is now in the National Museum 
Munich. It is signed with a jingle: 

"In fourteen fifty -seven it came, 
Peter Kaltenhof was the name 
Of the man who painted the same." 

The ceiling is divided into narrow sections in which Bible scenes 
are pictured, with explanatory inscriptions. The figures are small 
and crowded and the effect of the whole is not particularly deco- 
rative. It has been twice painted over; in 1538, by Jorg Breu 
and again, in 1601, by Johann Herzog, but can hardly have been 
of much artistic worth at any time. 

The first great master of painting in Augsburg was Hans Holbein 
the Elder, who was born about 1460 and whose name appears on the 
list of painters for the last time in 1524. It is probable that he came, 
first of all, under the influence of Bartholme Zeitblom of Ulm and 
then of Italian, particularly of Venetian, painters. Whether or not 
Holbein the Elder ever visited Venice we do not know, but there 
seems to be no reason why he should not have done so, as Augsburg, 
with the princely Fugger family at its head, was always in close 
intercourse with Italy, and a journey to the city which was the goal 
of all the German artists of the sixteenth century would not seem a 
very formidable undertaking. Venetian influence on Holbein the 
Elder's works is to be observed, in the main, in the simplifying of 

152 



HANS HOLBEIN THE ELDER 153 

the composition of his pictures, and the developing of his natural 
Swabian gift for colour. 

The artist's earliest known work is the altar-piece which was 
painted in 1493 for Weingarten Abbey and which is now in Augsburg 
Cathedral in four sections which present "Joachim's Sacrifice," 
with, in the background, "Joachim Among the Shepherds;" the 
"Birth of the Virgin," with the "Meeting at the Golden Gate;" 
the "Presentation of the Virgin in the Temple," with the "Visita- 
tion" and the "Presentation of Christ in the Temple," and, in the 
sky above, the "Coronation of the Virgin by the Father and the 
Son," symbolised by two quite youthful men, exactly alike. The 
details in these pictures are recorded with great faithfulness. The 
animation of the little dog in the scene in which the shepherds wel- 
come Joachim, the eagerness of the woman in the very up-to-date 
costume who is hurriedly testing with her foot the heat of the water 
in the bath she is preparing for the new-born Virgin Mary, are given 
as if the painter himself took pleasure in the air of intimacy which 
their introduction imparts to the scenes. But this familiarity is 
saved from becoming matter-of-fact or vulgar by the loveliness of 
the slender, innocent women who move with such unconscious 
grace, and by the refinement and harmony of the colouring. 

One of the most beautiful works from the closing years of the 
century is the "Madonna and Child," dated 1499, which is now in 
the Germanic Museum, Nuremberg. It presents the Virgin in a 
Gothic architectural setting, enthroned and holding in her arms 
the beautiful Babe, to whom two blue-robed angels are offering 
flowers. The people are lovely in face and form, and simple, 
artless and tender in manner. The angels with their rather long, 
narrow faces and straight hair and their garments falling in such 
graceful folds are reminiscent of Zeitblom. The colouring is soft and 
harmonious, though a curious redness of the flesh tones is noticeable 
in this as in most of the master's early works. 

After the rebuilding, in 1496, of St. Catherine's Cloister, Augs- 
burg, the artist received from its nuns a curious and interesting 
commission. These nuns had, in 1484, received a special dispensa- 
tion of grace from Pope Innocent VIII, promising that if they 
would worship in three different parts of their cloister with the 



154 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART 

same passion of meditation and prayer they would expend if they 
made a pilgrimage to the seven great churches of Rome, they 
should receive the same indulgence. To make the pilgrimage seem 
almost real and to arouse in themselves a greater degree of pious 
enthusiasm, the nuns desired to have painted, in those chosen parts 
of their cloister, pictures of the principal churches of Rome, 
together with scenes from the legends of their titular saints. To 
Holbein was given the commission to paint the first of these basilica 
pictures, that of "Santa Maria Maggiore." He divided the space 
within the Gothic arch into three fields, by means of slender 
wooden columns, so that the appearance of the whole is similar to 
that of a large triptych. Following still further the plan of an 
altar-piece, he filled the upper part of the arch with a gilded 
Gothic tracery like a vine with curling leaves, a decoration which, 
it is true, engrosses too large a place in the pictures and proves 
distracting. In the apex of the arch, framed by the tracery, is 
represented the Coronation of the Virgin, a youthful, beautiful woman 
on whose head a crown is being placed by the Trinity, symbolised, 
in mediaeval fashion, by three men who look exactly alike. About 
this group hover angels who fill the air with the music of instru- 
ments and joyous singing. 

The middle section contains the main subject, the basilica of 
Santa Maria Maggiore, which bears no resemblance to the church in 
Rome, but is a very simple, small chapel. On its bell the artist has 
signed his name. On the left is the Virgin adoring the Child; on the 
right the most attractive scene of all, the Martyrdom of St. Dorothea, 
introduced as a memorial to the donor, Dorothea Rolinger, who, 
in nun's dress, kneels in the right-hand corner of the picture. In 
the centre of it, the slender, girlish saint is again pictured with long 
fair hair falling about her shoulders, wearing a brocaded dress and 
a mantle of plain stuff, a large crown and a halo, as she kneels 
with folded hands to receive the sword stroke which the evil-looking 
executioner behind her is preparing to deal with great force. She 
has, however, forgotten all about him in her absorption in the 
small, beautifully formed Christ Child who has suddenly appeared 
before her, his transparent little mantle of blue, star-spangled 
gauze all fluttering from his haste, and who offers her a basket of 



HANS HOLBEIN THE ELDER 155 

flowers. His lips are parted as he says the words written on the 
scroll he bears — "See, Dorothea, I bring thee roses"; to which the 
saint responds by asking him to take them for her to Theophilus, 
who has vowed that if she will send him roses from beyond the 
grave, lie will become a Christian. The little story is simply and 
charmingly told; the types are very lovely, the garments graceful, 
the colouring clear and joyous. Slightly disturbing are the many 
stars with which the blue background is so thickly dotted and 
the gilded traceries dividing this picture from the one in the arch 
above. 

The artist could hardly have finished this work for St. Catherine's 
Cloister before he began the large series of twelve scenes from the 
Passion of Christ in Donaueschingen Gallery, which are painted in 
stone grey, with only the faces and hands, hair and beard and an 
occasional landscape detail given in colour. And almost simultane- 
ously with the commission for these scenes came one from the Domi- 
nican Monks in Frankfort to paint for them a great altar, also with 
scenes from the Passion. Of these, only " The Last Supper " is still in 
St. Leonhard's Church there, the rest, in sections, having been trans- 
ferred to the Municipal Museum. The picture from the back of the 
shrine, representing the Genealogical Tree of Christ, gives not only 
his ancestors, but, among the curving vine stems, against the back- 
ground of a red brick wall, the saints of the Dominican order. The 
eleven pictures from the wings and the base represent scenes from 
the Passion in which the figures are so flat, so badly modelled and, 
for the most part, so unlovely, that they were, doubtless, almost 
entirely the work of pupils. The lighting with soft, golden sunlight 
is, however, most attractive. 

In the next year the painter undertook a third series of eight 
scenes from the Passion, together with eight from the Life of the 
Virgin, for the High Altar of the monastery in Kaisheim, on a com- 
mission from its abbot, George Kastner. In these pictures, which 
are in Munich Pinakothek, the happenings are made to seem very 
real and natural by being interpreted in terms of everyday life. 
So, in "Christ Taken Prisoner," Gethsemane is a little German 
garden, enclosed by a characteristic fence of braided withes over 
which Judas is climbing. The people are, for the most part, por- 



156 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART 

trayed from life and here and there is a really fine portrait, as that 
of the beardless old king with the thin fringe of grey hair, in the 
"Adoration." The flesh tones are clear and fair, but the colouring 
in these panels is, on the whole, less harmonious than is usual in 
the artist's works; much pale blue is used in the garments with 
bright and dark red and yellow, and all the colours stand out as 
independent, local and imperfectly blended in the white light that 
fills the pictures. Undoubtedly, with such large commissions com- 
ing so thick and fast, Holbein was obliged to leave much of the 
work on these three cycles to be done by pupils. 

Work in St. Catherine's Cloister was resumed in 1503, when the 
artist painted, for Prioress Veronica Welser, a second basilica, St. 
Paul's. In the arch is the " Crowning with Thorns" which, in the 
types presented, and the attitude of the seated Christ, is reminiscent 
of Schongauer's engraving of the subject, although in modelling and 
expressiveness it falls short of the achievement of the Colmar master. 
The three main divisions of the picture are crowded with scenes from 
the Life of Saint Paul. On the right is, in the foreground, the Burial 
of the Saint; in the background, three other scenes, among them the 
Lowering of the Saint in a Basket over the Wall of the City. On 
the left are, in the background, the Conversion of St. Paul, and St. 
Paul in Prison; in the foreground, the Baptism, in which Holbein 
himself stands to the right of the font with his two sons, Ambro- 
sius and Hans the Younger, the latter a lad of about six years. The 
foreground of the central section is occupied with the scenes repre- 
senting St. Paul as Prisoner, and the Beheading of St. Paul, so that 
the chief theme of the picture, the basilica, is relegated to the middle 
distance. There we see St. Paul in a low box of a pulpit preaching 
earnestly; a man and a woman sitting on the steps of the altar close 
beside him drink in every word, while two men standing near him, 
one of whom leans on his elbow on the altar, listen thoughtfully. 
But long before we discover the preaching apostle, indeed before 
we can bring ourselves to note any of the scenes pictured, our gaze 
is held fascinated by a solitary woman who has secured a chair from 
somewhere, placed it deliberately right in the middle of the basilica 
and seated herself, with her back to us and to the gruesome scene of 
martyrdom, to listen to the sermon. She is dressed after the fashion 




-2 



•*« _, i> V-* 

T = J= ^ 

r; /? j -< 

5, « Jj (J 

I— I ca y 

a J E J 

K ^ = -3 

- =-^ S 

2*_g e 



a 5 




atograph by Franz Hanfxlaengl 



HANS HOLBEIN THE ELDER 

St. Barbara and St. Elizabeth of Hungary 

alte pinakothek, munich 



HANS HOLBEIN THE ELDER 157 

of the period, in a low-cut gown which reveals the fine, soft modelling 
of the throat, and wears an ermine collar and a picturesque white 
headdress. This figure, so lifelike and so assured in its pose, arro- 
gating to itself the position of greatest importance in the picture, 
gives a very human, worldly touch which cannot but provoke a smile 
at its incongruity and whimsicality. 

During the three years after the finishing of this picture, from 
1505 to 1508, Holbein was engaged on the wings of a large altar-piece 
for St. Moritz's Church in Augsburg, which have, unfortunately, 
disappeared; and on scenes from the Life of the Virgin for the Nun- 
nery in Oberschonefeld, which are now in Augsburg Gallery. In 1508 
he painted for the Burgomaster of Augsburg, Ulrich Schwarz, a votive 
picture which shows, assembled below the enthroned God the Father 
bearing the sword, with whom Christ and the Virgin intercede, the 
Burgomaster, his three wives, seventeen sons and fourteen daughters. 
The divine personages look like ordinary human beings and are not 
of great beauty or dignity, but the kneeling family is a truly remark- 
able group of portraits. Each individual is given with perfect de- 
tachment and with well-marked individuality, yet the contours are 
soft and yielding, with none of the hardness and sharpness which is 
characteristic of so many of the portraits by the earlier German 
painters. 

That the elder Holbein possessed in large measure those 
gifts of the portrait painter which in his son amounted to genius, 
is felt in almost all his later pictures, but is most readily and 
fully appreciated if we look at the series of drawings of the 
monks of St. Ulrich 's in his sketch book in Basel, which were 
made about 1510. The modelling is perfect, the outlines yielding 
and without sharpness, the individual monks so wonderfully 
characterised that we know what were their tastes and habits of 
life. Their over-fed bodies and sensual minds and hearts as here 
presented, would, in themselves, suggest the need of the Refor- 
mation which was so soon to voice loud its protests against such 
as these. 

We have no record of the artist's activities during the next two 
years, from 1510 to 1512. In the latter year he was again in Augs- 
burg and painted an altar for St. Catherine's Cloister representing 



158 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART 

the Crucifixion of St. Peter, the Beheading of St. Catherine, 
the Virgin and St. Anna, and a scene from the Legends of 
St. Ulrich. In these scenes, which are now in Augsburg Gallery, 
the master attains to perfect naturalism; the people represented 
are all definite persons and even the villains are no longer 
typical caricatures of Jews, but are burly German common 
soldiers. The full, mature forms of the Virgin and St. Anna 
are Venetian in type and the deep, rich colouring is also reminis- 
cent of the school of the Bellini. This development would lead 
us to infer that those two years of which no records remain 
were spent in Venice. 

Very slight, however, are the traces of Italian influence in the 
" Holy Night, " in Donaueschingen Gallery, which bears, on the step 
between the two worshipping angels, the date 1514. The dress and 
pose of the youthful shepherd on the hill to the left, with the fluttering 
of the long plaid worn by his older companion are almost the only 
touches that suggest it. In the foreground the tiny Babe, in an 
aureole, is lying on a very high bundle of straw; the Virgin 
kneels in worship; behind her, Joseph, smiling happily on the 
Babe, holds a candle which he shelters with his hand from the 
wind; the ox stands placidly by; three angels with curious wings 
of long, separate feathers in all different colours, kneel in raptur- 
ous adoration; through a window two men look in upon the 
scene. Through a doorway in the background we see into 
another room in which are a woman with a lantern, and an aged 
man on his knees in prayer. The picture is very lovely and 
possesses a certain quality of rapture which is owing, in large 
measure, to the faith and self-forgetful devotion of the actors in 
the scene, though in part, also, to the glowing colouring. 

Venetian influence is quite strongly felt in Holbein's master- 
piece, the St. Sebastian Altar, which was painted for the 
Salvatorkirche in Augsburg in 1515 and 1516, and which is now 
in Munich Pinakothek. It represents, on the outside, the Annun- 
ciation; on the shrine, the Martyrdom of St. Sebastian; on the 
wings, St. Barbara and St. Elizabeth. 

The Annunciation is done in grey on grey, with the faces 
and some accessories lightly touched with colour. The Virgin 



HANS HOLBEIX THE ELDER 159 

kneeling in prayer in a Renaissance room, is pictured as receiv- 
ing with much dignity, yet with humility, the message of the 
angel with the round cheeks, the short curly hair and the great, 
feathered wings which support him so that he seems to float, to 
hover above her, and does not, ever so lightly, touch the ground. 
The forms are full and softly modelled; although they are almost 
without colour, there is no suggestion of the sharp definiteness 
which makes the forms of some of the other German painters of 
the period seem like figures carved in wood. 

The picture on the shrine of the altar is less attractive. The nude 
form of the mature Saint Sebastian, with the sunken chest and thin 
hmbs, is unbeautiful and weakly modelled. The heads of his execu- 
tioners and of the bystanders are, however, exceedingly lifelike and 
expressive. 

The Saints Barbara and Elizabeth, on the wings, are very 
lovely. They each stand in a richly ornamented Renaissance 
doorway, with, in the background, trees and a church. St. 
Elizabeth is surrounded by beggars at once beseeching and 
adoring. The two figures are statuesque in pose and regal in 
bearing; their faces bear some resemblance to the rounded type 
of the beautiful women in the Venetian pictures of the period, yet 
are entirely individual; their garments, fashioned according to 
the prevailing mode, fall in large simple folds; the hair-dressing, 
too, is after the fashion of the day, though both saints wear 
crowns and are invested with halos. The colouring is of great 
beauty. The flesh tones have lost the reddish cast they are so 
frequently given in the painter's earlier works, and have become 
fresh and natural; the rich, glowing, local colours are blended in 
harmony, golden in tone and so perfect as to bear comparison 
with the colour harmonies in the works of Holbein the Younger. 

The last years of the artist's life seem to have been hard 
ones, full of financial troubles. We read that he travelled here 
and there in search of commissions, the course of his wanderings 
bringing him, among other places, to Isenheim, where was the 
masterpiece of Matthaus Griinewald. But of creative work on 
his own part nothing more is heard. In 1524 his name appears 
in the lists in Augsburg among the deceased. 



160 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART 

Hans Holbein the Elder was not an artist of great depth 
of penetration but he observed closely, and did not fail to 
suggest the individual note in every personality. Of course, he 
exaggerated the hateful to make it convincing; but his feeling 
for beauty was quick and keen, and his pictures are pervaded 
with it and possessed of much dignity and charm, except 
occasionally when everything is sacrificed to the dramatic quality 
in a scene. His colouring, as we have seen, grew more and 
more harmonious as his art developed. It is indeed not such a 
far cry from the father Hans Holbein with his keen obser- 
vation, skilful characterisation, beautiful types and harmonious 
colouring, to the son Hans Holbein the Younger. 



CHAPTER XXII 

AUGSBURG 

HANS BURGKMAIR 

A CONTEMPORARY of the elder Hans Holbein in Augsburg 
from whose hand no works remain to us, was Toman Burgk- 
mair, whose son Hans, born in 1473, became one of the best 
known painters of the sixteenth century. His studies were doubt- 
less begun in his father's workshop, but he went, while still very- 
young, to Colmar, to the great Schongauer. Souvenirs of his 
sojourn there are the beautiful portrait of his master in Munich 
Pinakothek, which was done, however, at a later date, when he 
had acquired more technical skill, and the portrait in Schleiss- 
heim Castle, dated 1490, of Gailer of Kaisersperg, who at that 
time was preaching in the neighbouring Strassburg. This por- 
trait, done when the painter was only seventeen years old, presents 
the famous preacher in half length against a blue-green back- 
ground, wearing a tightly fitting black coat and a high black cap. 
It is a record of his external appearance merely, is flat and hard 
and painfully exact, and gives no hint of his profound scholarship or 
devout enthusiasm. From Colmar, the young artist probably went 
on to Venice, and spent there the years until 1498, of which no 
record remains. In 1498 he became a citizen of Augsburg, where 
he married Anna Allerhahn. He died in 1531. 

Very shortly after his return to his native city he received from 
the nuns of St. Catherine's Cloister a commission to paint basilica 
pictures in that series upon which Hans Holbein the Elder and 
Master L. F. were already engaged. In 1501 he painted St. Peter 
enthroned in his Chinch, surrounded by fourteen Saints. In the 
arch is Christ in Gethsemane. The next year he painted "San 
Giovanni in Laterano," which presents, besides the basilica in the 
central picture, six scenes from the Life of St. John, with, in the 
arch, the Scourging of Christ. In 1504 he completed the series 

161 



162 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART 

with the basilica of Santa Croce, in which he introduced, in the 
arch, the Crucifixion, in the central section, the church, on the 
sides, the Martyrdom of the Ten Thousand Virgins. The architec- 
ture in all three pictures possesses many Italian features; the 
forms are full and rounded, and in the Passion scenes the suffering 
is not permitted to be so real as to mar the beauty of face and 
form. In the earlier picture, the garments are painstakingly dis- 
posed while in those painted last they hang freely in large 
graceful folds. The colouring is unpleasantly heavy, even the 
shadows on the faces being dark brown in tone; gold is lavishly 
used in crowns, halos and garments with rather garish effect. 

After finishing the work for the cloister, Burgkmair painted, in 
1505, the two panels, now in the Germanic Museum, Nuremberg, one 
of which presents St. Christopher carrying the Christ Child, ac- 
companied by St. Vitus; the other, St. Sebastian, over whose 
nude body a mantle has been lightly thrown, and the Emperor 
Constantine who wears, over his black and gold armour, a hand- 
some green mantle trimmed with ermine. On his head is a 
jewelled crown, in his hands he bears a sword and sceptre. 
The two stand in a Renaissance hall across which, behind them, 
three angels hold, breast-high, a gold-embroidered drapery. The 
landscape in the background and the late-Italian angel hovering 
overhead are recent additions. The form of St. Sebastian is 
refined and beautiful and his attitude one of great alertness; 
Constantine has nothing of the imperial about him; he is neither 
imposing in appearance nor commanding in bearing, but gives 
rather the effect of an Augsburg burgher dressed in gorgeous 
regalia. An impression is given here which we frequently receive 
from Burgkmair's people; they are beautifully modelled, with pli- 
able lines and rounded contours, but what we might call fundamental 
construction is lacking in most of them; they seem to be modelled 
on the outside only and to have no firm, unyielding, inner structure 
back of their softly rounded curves. Nor is this a merely physical 
peculiarity; it is a quality which affects them mind and soul, so 
that, though they be represented as being, believing or feeling a cer- 
tain thing, we seldom fail to question their genuiness, to suspect 
that they are just robed and posed for their parts. 




Photograph by Fried. Hoefle, Augsburg 

HANS BURGKMAIR 

Group of Saints (Detail) 
royal gallery, augsburg 




Photograph by Fried. Hoefle, Augsburg 



HANS BURGKMAIR 

Virgin and Child 
germanic museum, nuremberg 



HANS BURGKMAIR 163 

Thus in the "Coronation of the Virgin," which was painted in 
1507, and is now in Augsburg Gallery, the Christ is so weak 
and unimpressive in form and attitude that we are not impressed 
with the joyous solemnity of the occasion, or with the sympa- 
thetic tenderness of the Divine Son, which the artist seeks to 
convey through the sentimental expression of the face and the 
pose of the head, which is crowned with the crown of thorns as 
well as the kingly crown. Through the windows in the back of 
the throne we see countless angels. In the background the sky 
is cloudy and troubled — an effect which the artist has sought 
simply for its own sake and which is out of place and disquiet- 
ing. On the wings is a singularly archaic arrangement of saints 
and prophets, in three rows, one above the other. 

From 1509 dates one of the artist's most beautiful pictures, the 
"Madonna in a Landscape," in the Germanic Museum, Nuremberg. 
The Virgin, a tall, graceful woman in a red robe with blue mantle 
lined with green, a white veil over her head, is sitting on a richly decor- 
ated, high-backed, marble seat, all beautiful with climbing vines and 
many-coloured flowers and little birds. On her lap is an open book; 
at her knee stands the Holy Child holding a pomegranate. In the 
background is a hilly landscape with many trees and a castle. This 
Virgin is one of the most charming of all Burgkmair's conceptions. 
Lovely in face and form, her beautifully coloured robes falling in 
natural and graceful folds about her, she sits, devoid of all self- 
consciousness, happily dreaming. The child is quite naively done 
from life, and is frankly bow-legged. In the colouring the painter 
has gotten away from the heavy, brown tone of his earlier works to 
a rich, deep harmony like that of the early Venetians. 

A second Madonna picture which possesses much beauty was 
painted in the following year and is also in the Germanic Museum. 
The Virgin, wearing the same robes as in the foregoing, is seated in a 
landscape, in front of a fence of braided withes, over which is 
thrown a Persian rug, and holds on her knee the Child, to whom 
she is offering a bunch of grapes plucked from the vine beside 
them. 

To the next year, 1511, belongs a third picture in this vein, the 
" Holy Family," in Berlin Gallery. Here the Virgin, of fuller, rounder 



164 



GERMAN MASTERS OF ART 



face and form, like the Madonnas of Jacopo de' Barbari, is seated in 
a loggia, and Joseph, a young man of pronounced Italian type with 
brown, curling hair and beard, is endeavouring to attract the Child's 
attention with a bunch of grapes. To the left stretches a landscape 
with a stream and many trees on which the sunlight is shining as it 
does on the forest in Altdorfer's St. George, and the large tree 
in the middle distance is encircled by a cloud full of cherubs, 
a motif which cannot fail to recall the ring of angels in the 
Ratisbon master's "Birth of the Virgin." 

By this time the attention of the Emperor Maximilian was 
attracted to the Augsburg painter, whom, in 1510, he commissioned to 
work on the illustrations for the Imperial Genealogy. These com- 
pleted, he went on to make drawings for other artistic undertakings of 
the Emperor; for that history, in woodcuts, of his life and deeds, 
which was called the "White King" (Weisskunig) ; for the "Tri- 
umphal Procession" and the "Austrian Saints." These plates are, 
for the most part, so crowded with figures and with ornamenta- 
tion that it is quite difficult to find the real theme. The year 
1515 found him, with so many other artists, engaged on the illustra- 
tions for the Emperor's Prayerbook. His part in this work seems to 
have been small, however, as only the "Triumph of Love," in the 
Besangon fragment, and possibly the "Hermit's Vision" and "Man 
riding an Elephant" are from his hand. 

Meanwhile commissions of an entirely different character 
occupied him in Augsburg. In 1514, according to Sandrart, "this 
Burgkmair painted very artistically a corner house in Count Fugger's 
dwelling, on the Wine Market in Augsburg, and also a house opposite 
St. Anna's Church, where he painted on the wall with much clever- 
ness and skill, artisans, distinct individuals, and so perfect in colour 
that in spite of the fact that they have been exposed to wind, rain and 
sun and other disturbances of the weather, in so many years, they have 
hardly lost or faded at all." But the frescoes on the Fugger house 
have now disappeared from view, while the remains of the groups 
of peasants, warriors, and merchants on the house opposite St. 
Anna's Church have been thoroughly restored. A year later, in 
1515, he painted frescoes in the Damenhof of the Fugger residence, 
representing scenes from the life of the Emperor Maximilian simi- 



HANS BURGKMAIR 165 

lar to those in the "Triumphal Procession" and framed with 
ornamental garlands in the Italian Renaissance manner. 

To 1518 belongs one of the artist's greatest works, an altar-piece, 
of which the wings, which present, in full length, the standing 
figures of Saints Erasmus and Nicholas, are in Schleissheim, 
while the central section, representing St. John on Patmos, is in 
Munich Pinakothek. 

St. John is pictured sitting under a palm tree writing his book. 
All about him the tropical vegetation is most luxuriant, flowers bloom 
and fruits ripen, and many small animals and birds enliven the scene. 
In the background is the sea on whose shore are tall mountain peaks. 
Suddenly a brilliant, many-coloured light has burst through the 
clouds and John, startled, has turned to behold, in the heart of the 
light, the Virgin, Queen of Heaven. The effect of the supernatural 
is wonderfully conveyed by the light, handled, as it is, in a way 
which cannot fail to recall Altdorfer, and which is of much beauty. 
Yet the representation falls short of being profoundly impressive 
because the painter fails to lose himself in it. His manifest con- 
sciousness of the many accessories and of the technical achieve- 
ments in lighting and atmospheric quality intensifies our conscious- 
ness in turn, puts us outside the picture, so to speak, so that instead 
of being absorbed we become critical. Whereupon we find that 
the sky is solid rather than vaporous, that the clouds which 
should be all glory are muddy and streaked here and there with 
black, and an uneasy uncertainty mounts within us as to whether 
the scene is wholly ecstatic — a disquiet which is further heightened 
by the saint's expresssion, which reveals interest, even anxiety, 
but no rapture. The painter was indeed so greatly concerned, so 
nervously anxious, over the details of the setting and the technical 
problem of the fighting, that they acquired more importance in his 
estimation than the emotional content of the picture. 

The next year Burgkmair painted for St. Catherine's Cloister 
the large altar with the Crucifixion as its subject, which has now 
been taken from Augsburg to Munich Pinakothek. On the outside 
are presented St. George and St. Paul. In the central section is the 
high cross on which hangs the Christ, a slender form, with hands and 
arms and feet painfully distorted, with the body and face all blood- 



166 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART 

stained but not contorted or unbeautiful to look upon. To the right 
of the cross stands John, with both hands raised as if in protest and 
horror at the scene; to the left, the Virgin in the dress of the period, 
and wearing a white headdress, her hands folded, her features swollen 
with weeping. Mary Magdalen, in handsome, brocaded robe with 
plain mantle, is clinging to the foot of the cross. In the middle 
distance is the city of Jerusalem, in a landscape with snow-capped 
mountains in the background. Overhead, the sky is intensely blue, 
with unquiet clouds, one of which, just above the cross, casts its dark 
shadow over the face of the Christ. 

On the right wing is the cross of the good thief, beside which 
stands St. Lazarus, dressed very simply in the fashion of the time, 
his hands folded as he leans forward and looks up, wondering and 
adoring. On the left wing the unrepentant thief is seen in profile; 
at the foot of his cross, disregarding it and facing the spectator, 
stands St. Martha. Groves of trees almost fill the background in 
these two pictures. The sky above the cross of the repentant male- 
factor is filled with light, in which an angel is seen bearing his spirit- 
ual body heavenward; above the other's cross all is black dark- 
ness, in which is dimly discernible a devil carrying off his unhappy 
soul. 

The atmosphere in all three pictures is calculated to reflect the 
supreme tragedy being enacted and to impress us with its horror. 
But again there comes to us that sense of unreality which, for all 
his technical skill and beauty of types and of colouring, prevents 
Burgkmair from taking rank among the very greatest painters. 
These people are not capable of really deep feeling, of passion- 
ate faith, love or grief; they are merely assuming the poses 
that ought to express those emotions. They are not theatrical, 
affected or even excessively self-conscious; they are simply not 
spontaneous. Thus scenes like this of the Crucifixion do not 
give the impression of reality, but rather one akin to that 
gained from a tableau in which those taking part have been 
trained to assume, with some grace, appropriate attitudes and 
expressions. 

A new patron engaged the artist's activities in 1529, when 
Duke Wilhelm IV commissioned him to paint for his series of 



HANS BURGKMAIR 167 

battle scenes the picture of the Battle of Canna, now in Augsburg 
Gallery. It is nothing more than a literal historical picture, done 
in a heavy brown tone, without atmosphere or charm. 

In this year he also painted the double portrait of himself and 
his wife, which is in Vienna Gallery. Frau Burgkmair, who has strong 
features and rather thin, wavy hair that falls about her shoulders, 
is holding a mirror, out of which look two death's heads. Beside 
her stands the artist, with round, clean-shaven face; his keen glance 
is directed toward the spectator and, with his outstretched hand, 
seems to direct attention to the lugubrious inscription above: 
"Such a form we both have, but a mirror has nothing but 
this!" 

Two years later, in 1531, the artist died. 

Hans Burgkmair, like the other artists of the Swabian School, 
is pre-eminently a story teller. He is no revealer of men's souls 
or of the inner springs of their actions. When he tells a simple 
story or presents a happy scene from the home life of the Holy 
Family, his beautiful types and a gift of colour approaching that 
of the Venetians make the pictures of rare beauty. But, on the 
other hand, when he attempts to give us a glimpse of the deepest 
emotions known to the hearts of men, he fails to be convincing 
in spite of his command of revelatory and dramatic effects in light- 
ing; the attitudes of his actors seem studied, their poses acquired, 
even their physical presences unreal. 



CHAPTER XXIII 

AUGSBURG 

MINOR ARTISTS 

Sigmund Holbein — Ambrosius Holbein — Gumpold Giltinger — Leo Frass — Hans 
Burgkmair the Younger — J6rg Breu — Ulrich Apt — Leonhard Beck — 
Christoph Amberger — Christoph Schwartz 

BESIDES the greatly gifted artists Hans Holbein the Elder 
and Hans Burgkmair, and the genius, Hans Holbein the 
Younger, almost all of whose active life as a painter was 
spent away from his home city, there were in Augsburg in the 
closing years of the fifteenth, and throughout the sixteenth cen- 
tury, many painters of lesser talent, whose works claim our 
interest and consideration. 

Among them were two other members of the Holbein family, 
Sigmund, a brother, and Ambrosius a son of the elder Hans. The 
only picture by Sigmund which has been identified is a very at- 
tractive " Madonna and Child with Angels, " in the Germanic Mus- 
eum, which is signed "S. Holbain." In composition and spirit 
it resembles closely the Madonna pictures of Hans Holbein the 
Elder, while in types and colouring it reveals, in a marked 
degree, the influence of Zeitblom. The last years of Sigmund 
Holbein's life were spent in Bern, where he evidently accumulated 
some wealth, as, upon his death in 1540, he left a considerable 
legacy to his nephew Hans. His other nephew, Ambrosius, son 
of Hans the Elder, went to Basel with his brother in 1515, and 
two years later became a member of the Guild there. The year 
following he was admitted to citizenship, but must have died 
young, for after that date nothing more is recorded about him. 
In Basel Kunstsammlung is his "Christ as Mediator" in which the 
Christ is copied from the title page of Durer's large woodcut 
Passion. Two portraits of boys attributed to him are well drawn 
and lifelike — are indeed very similar to the works of the younger 
Hans Holbein from the same period. To Ambrosius is now at- 

168 



MINOR ARTISTS 1G9 

tributed the portrait of the Swiss painter Hans Herbst, or Herb- 
ster, painted in 1516, which was formerly ascribed to his younger 
brother, and also the portrait of his friend the goldsmith Georg 
Schweiger, and that of "A Young Man," dated 1518, in the 
Hermitage Gallery, St. Petersburg. In Basel Kunstsammlung are, 
further, from his hand, two "Death's Heads" behind a window grat- 
ing, and several drawings for portraits and for glass windows. 

A contemporary of the elder Holbein who received important 
commissions in Augsburg was Gumpold Giltinger. We read that 
he was engaged from 1481 to 1481- on a great altar for the Frauen- 
kirche, which has, unfortunately, disappeared. In the Louvre is 
a signed "Adoration of the Kings," and in Augsburg Gallery a pic- 
ture with the same subject which is attributed to him, and in 
which the second king, bearing the urn, is identified with Anton 
Fugger, of the princely Augsburg family. The paintings on the 
shutters of the smaller organ in St. Anna's Church are also gen- 
erally accepted as his work. Judging by the few pictures that 
remain, Giltinger was an artist of little distinction. The scenes 
are crowded, the expressions of the people vacant or affected, 
the colours brilliant and inharmonious. 

A painter who, in 1502, worked at the same time as Holbein on 
the basilica pictures for St. Catherine's Cloister, signed his pictures 
with the initials L. F. This was possibly Leo Frass, whose name ap- 
pears on the city list of painters in 1499; or it may have been that 
Laux Frelich who, in 1440, was introduced to the Guild by Gumpold 
Giltinger as one of his pupils. He unites in his picture for St. 
Catherine's Cloister the two basilicas of San Lorenzo and San 
Sebastiano. Standing beside them, are their titular saints, St. 
Lawrence bearing his grill and a palm branch, St. Sebastian 
holding an arrow. In the central section is pictured the Martyr- 
dom of St. Stephen; on the sides are four incidents connected 
with the finding of the cross by St. Helena; on the arch above 
is the Judas Kiss. The men are large-framed and coarse, the 
women bony and unattractive; the colouring is dark, and gold is 
very lavishly used. 

A son of Hans Burgkmair, Hans the Younger, followed his 
father's profession but devoted himself for the most part to that 



170 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART 

branch of it which has to do with book illustration. Of his paint- 
ings, the most important is the " Christ in Hades" which was done in 
1534 for St. Anna's Church in Augsburg, and in which an evident 
endeavour to imitate the later Venetian painters results in Italian 
types, distressing movement, unsettled and disquieting colouring. 
Very similar in style are the Assumption of Christ and the Virgin 
on the shutters of the larger organ in the same church, which are 
also attributed to him. His chief work as an illuminator is to be 
found in the third section of the "Book of Jousts" (Turnierbuch) in 
the Library of Sigmaringen Castle, on the pages representing the 
tournaments which were held in the Wine Market in Augsburg 
on the occasion of the Marriage of Catherine Fugger to Count 
Wundfort, in 1553. 

Mentioned in the records from 1501 to 1536 is Jdrg Breu (Brew 
or Prew) from whose hand, however, few works remain. The most 
interesting, in Berlin Gallery, shows, in a rolling landscape, between 
two graceful, slender trees, a Madonna, of girlish type, her draperies 
falling in broad folds similar to those in the pictures by the elder 
Burgkmair, and a chubby, nude Child who is standing on her knee 
with one arm around her neck. Overhead, two small angels are 
flying swiftly toward them, bearing a crown. Beside her sit the 
youthful saints, Barbara and Catherine, handsomely robed in cos- 
tumes of the period and wearing crowns. On the ground at their 
feet are seven winged cherubs, who are singing enthusiastically 
from scrolls which intimate, moreover, that they are the seven 
cardinal virtues. The types are refined, the forms, though youth- 
ful, are full, the faces round, the expressions, though serious and 
absorbed, are very childlike. The colouring is like the elder 
Burgkmair's. 

Jorg Breu's son, the younger Jorg, became a Master in the 
Guild in Augsburg in 1534 and died there in 1547. He was one of 
the painters engaged upon Duke Wilhelm IV's series of battle scenes, 
in which he painted the Battle of Zama, at the moment of the victory 
of Scipio Africanus over Hannibal. His most important work is the 
St. Ursula Altar in Dresden Gallery, which pictures the martyrdom 
of the saint, with, on the outer sides of the wings, the standing 
figures of St. Ursula and St. George. 




Photograph by Hoflinger, Basel 

AMBROSIUS HOLBEIN 

Portrait of Hans Herbst, the Swiss Painter 

oeffen'tliche kunstsammlung, basel 




Photograph hy the Berlin Photographic Society 

CHRISTOPH AMBERGER 

Portrait of Sebastian Munster, the Cosmographeb 

kaiser friedrich mt'seum, berlin 



MINOR ARTISTS 171 

A painter who developed under the influence of the elder Burg- 
kmair was Ulrieh Apt the Elder, who was a Master in the Guild in 
Augsburg in I486 and died there in 1532. His chief work, a trip- 
tych which was painted in 1517 for the Dominican Church and 
is now in Augsburg Gallery, presents, on the shrine, the Cruci- 
fixion, on the wings, in profile, the crosses of the two thieves. 
Over the cross hangs a cloud out of which come angels with 
variously coloured robes and wings, bearing chalices in which to 
treasure the precious blood. Over the cross of the good thief an 
angel hovers to bring him strength and comfort, while a hideous 
devil is seizing the soul of the unrepentant evildoer on the other 
cross. On the outer sides of the wings is the Annunciation, 
which is done in grey on grey, except that the hair is reddish 
and the cheeks are faintly coloured. The types on this altar 
are round faced, wholesome-looking and pleasing, the draperies 
soft and graceful. The landscape backgrounds, the trees and 
vines recall Altdorfer, to whom, indeed, this altar-piece was at- 
tributed previous to the discovery of the artist's signature A. P. T. 
on the bridle of one of the donkeys in the central picture. 

A contemporary of the younger Burgkmair who became a 
Master in Augsburg in 1503 and who died there in 1542, was 
Leonhard Beck. He is known chiefly from his drawings for 
woodcuts for the series planned by Emperor Maximilian, which 
reveal him as a simple, naive story teller with a fine sense of the 
decorative. His painting of St. George and the Dragon, in 
Vienna Gallery, presents a very youthful saint, clad in finely 
chased, shining armour, with waving plumes in his helmet, and 
riding a richly caparisoned steed. He has dashed over the 
ground strewn with the bones of the monster's victims, and has 
driven his sword into the venomous dragon, which has fallen 
over on its back, wounded to the death. On a hillock close at 
hand is the sedate and quite mature-looking princess, in beauti- 
ful robes, and on another little hillock her lamb, whose tether 
she holds. In the middle distance we see the end of the story. 
Out of a break in the rustic fence the princess is walking de- 
murely, leading the wounded dragon, while her stately knight 
brings up the rear of the procession. Beautiful trees and high 



172 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART 

rocks fill the middle distance, except for a wide opening to the 
left through which a view is given of meadows closed in by 
mountains in the background. The story is told with the literal- 
ness and simple faith of a Carpaccio, the many details are done 
with exquisite care and the whole picture is unusually decora- 
tive in effect. 

To the second half of the XVI century belonged Christoph 
Amberger, who was born about 1500, arrived at the dignity of 
Master in the Guild in 1530, and died before October 1552. Of 
his studies nothing is definitely known, but the influence of the 
later Italian painters is very marked in almost all his works. 
His masterpiece of religious painting, in the choir of Augsburg 
Cathedral — signed C. A. and dated 1534 — presents, in the middle 
section, a Madonna of Venetian type, holding the Child, whom 
music-making angels adore. In the arch above is the Trinity; on 
the wings are St. Ulrich and St. Afra, the latter resembling quite 
closely Raphael's St. Cecilia; on the base are half-length figures 
of seven saints. The costumes, attitudes and colouring reflect 
the influence of such an Italian master as Paul Veronese. 

Amberger's fame as a portrait painter is much greater than 
as a painter of religious pictures. His figures are firmly modelled 
and quite imposing; the details are given with care yet with con- 
siderable breadth; the materials are well rendered; the flesh tones 
are clear and fair. His people generally give an impression of 
great lifelikeness, though their eyes are sometimes rather staring. 
Most beautiful of all his portraits is that of Herr von Rieta in 
Sigmaringen Castle.* It presents, against a green curtain, a 
young man in a green, brocaded mantle, with white chemisette, 
wearing a black hat, and holding in his hand a carnation. On his 
sword hilt is the inscription — "I was 22 years old and loved joy," 
and on a pendant is the commentary — "He suffered no lack." 
The lifelikeness and distinction of the head, with the rich, yet 
subdued and harmonious colouring, make the portrait one of rare 
beauty. 

Three years later the artist's fame as a portrait painter had 
become so great that he was summoned, in 1532, to paint the 

* Some critics now attribute this portrait to Hans Baldung Grun. 



MINOR ARTISTS 173 

portrait of the Emperor Charles V, now in Berlin Gallery, which 
His Imperial Highness valued so greatly that he gave the artist 
three times the price agreed upon and presented him, besides, with 
a golden chain. 

An artist who was strongly influenced by the late Italian 
painters was Christoph Schwartz, who continued to work almost 
into the XVII century, or from 1550 to 1597. The types in his 
religious pictures are rather weak, the colouring heavy, with black 
shadows. Such portraits as those in the group of members of 
his own family, in Munich Pinakotek, give an impression of life- 
likeness, but lack inspiration. 



CHAPTER XXIV 

AUGSBURG— BASEL 

HANS HOLBEIN THE YOUNGER 

TIE greatest painter of the Swabian School, as also one of 
the chief glories of German art, was Hans Holbein the 
Younger, son of that older Hans Holbein who won great 
fame as a painter in Augsburg. We know him as a small boy 
from the baptismal scene in the picture of St. Paul's Basilica 
which his father painted for the nuns of St. Catherine's Cloister, 
in which he introduced himself and his two young sons, Hans 
and Ambrosius, as interested witnesses. Hans is a round-faced, 
meditative lad, with short, rumpled hair, who, standing behind the 
officiating priest appears to observe everything very closely and 
to let nothing escape him. Even in this early picture features and 
expression are very much like the Basel coloured portrait-drawing of 
the artist in a red cap, which was drawn in 1526. He evidently 
began early to study with his father, for the "Madonna and Child" 
in Basel Gallery was painted in 1514, when he was but seventeen 
years old. It presents the holy pair enthroned in a Renaissance 
loggia, surrounded by small, hovering angels who fill the air with 
music or who sadly bear the instruments of the Christ's future 
sufferings. As might be expected, the drawing is uncertain and 
hard, but the work is not at all dry; the forms are surprisingly 
well modelled and the colouring is warm and sunny. 

To the next year, 1515, belongs the "Cross Bearing," in Carlsruhe 
Gallery, which is, in general, so similar to his father's various pic- 
tures of the same subject, that some historians hold it for a joint 
work of father and son. The picture is so crowded with soldiers, 
sympathisers and spectators, and so full of movement, that the 
effect is most disturbing. Here and there the young Holbein's 
gifts of close observation and of natural and beautiful rendering 
of materials are revealed in such a figure as that of the centurion 
who, though his horse is wooden, is so distinguished in bearing 

174 



HANS HOLBEIN THE YOUNGER 175 

and so stately in his shining armour that he attracts and holds 
our attention, or that of the Lanzknecht with the long, tossing 
plumes in his cap — a type upon which, doubtless, the elder Holbein 
looked unsympathetically, if not scornfully, as representing a 
rough and lawless element, while his son, of the younger genera- 
tion, found them romantic "Robin Hoods," coarse, perhaps, but 
jolly dare-devils, who wore jaunty and picturesque costumes, 
whose moods readily expressed themselves in face and gesture, 
and who, therefore, were grateful subjects for the painter. 

Then the young artist and his brother Ambrosius set out upon 
their Wanderjahre, but they seem to have settled down at once in 
Basel where Hans found immediate employment with the great 
publisher Froben — or Frobenius — who commissioned him to make 
the drawings for the illustrations for Erasmus's "Praise of Folly,"* 
which was then in press. The illustrations are very simple and 
without any ornamentation whatever, but they are full of life and 
oftentimes very diverting — especially the travesties of familiar scenes 
from classical mythology. Commissions to paint came to him too. 
The first of these, a table top for the Baer family, is done in the 
same spirit as the illustrations for the "Praise of Folly" and the 
representations of sporting scenes and various other social diversions 
reflect ironically the frivolities of the age. On its completion in 1516 
he received from Baer's brother-in-law, the Burgomaster Jacob 
Meyer, a commission to paint the portraits of himself and his second 
wife, Dorothea Kannegiesser, which are now in the Kunstsammlung in 
Basel. The face of the Burgomaster reveals energy, deliberation 
and sound judgment; his wife's is plain but attractive in the 
kindliness of its expression. The colouring is not yet that of his later 
portraits, but is like his father's last works, warm brown in tone. 

In the same year the painter did a sign for a school in Basel 
which shows, on one side, a schoolroom in which boys and girls 
are receiving instruction from the schoolmaster and his wife, on 
the other, two grown lads whom the schoolmaster is teaching to 
write — two pictures of so obvious meaning as to render really 
unnecessary the inscription which invites not only children but 
adults to enter learning's portals. The work is done broadly, on 

* Myconicus's copy of the "Enconium Moriae" is in Basel Kunstsammlung. 



176 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART 

close inspection it seems even carelessly, but it must be borne in 
mind that this was a sign to be hung out of doors and not to 
be examined at close range. The painting of this sign is fre- 
quently referred to as though it were an indignity that the artist 
should have had to do such a thing. Undoubtedly he was in 
pressing need of money; but it must be remembered that the painters 
of coats-of-arms, emblems and signs were at this time all artists of 
standing and members of the Painters' Guild. 

Mere studies from models are the "Adam" and "Eve" in Basel 
Gallery, which were painted in 1517, before Holbein left for 
Lucerne, where he was to paint the facade of Jacob Hertenstein's 
house and a room in the interior. Unfortunately the house has 
been destroyed, but copies of the paintings which remain in 
Lucerne Library, and in Basel Kunstsammlung, give us an idea 
of the subjects and the skilful distribution of the space in which 
they were presented. On the first storey of the exterior, he 
painted groups of allegorical figures, on the second a Roman 
Triumphal Procession of the character of Mantegna's "Triumph 
of Julius Caesar" in Hampton Court. In the interior, he 
pictured scenes from the hunt and from other occupations of 
patrician life. This early opportunity to do work on a large 
scale was doubtless of great advantage to the artist, in helping him 
to avoid hardness and painful minuteness and to acquire greater 
breadth of style. 

After an absence of two years, we find him again in Basel 
in 1519, a member of the Guild, and engaged upon the portrait 
of Boniface Amerbach, the heir of Erasmus and the art con- 
noisseur whose collection forms the largest and most valuable 
part of the present Kunstsammlung in Basel. The portrait 
presents, in profile, a young man with regular features, pene- 
trating but kindly blue eyes, abundant and rather long hair 
partly covered by a cap, fine mouth and short, curly beard; 
beside him is a tree trunk on which hangs a descriptive 
inscription. The personal appearance and expression are most 
lifelike, the colouring refined and attractive. But, more than 
this, the whole picture, with its blue sky and big tree trunk 
possesses a poetic quality which lifts it above the mere record 



HANS HOLBEIN THE YOUNGER 177 

of a physical presence. It is the first intimation of the artist's 
supreme gift, which was to be revealed more fully in those later 
portraits in which the pure beauty caught in material things, 
the texture of the skin, hair and beard, the shimmer or the 
lustre of lawn, silk and fur, the glow of brass, the transparency 
of glass and water, the dewiness of a flower, the exquisite depth 
and luminosity of colours melting into one another in perfect 
harmony, has the effect on the senses of an intoxicating perfume, 
a strain of enchanting music. 

Holbein appears now to have decided to settle definitely in 
Basel, for the next year, 1520, he became a citizen and mar- 
ried a wife. Many commissions similar to the one he had filled 
in Lucerne came to him, of which we can learn now only from 
the drawings, which show that he created in the space to be 
filled, remarkable illusions of elaborate and beautiful architectural 
constructions, in which settings he painted scenes from history 
and from daily life. Evidently his reputation was already firmly 
established, for he was chosen by the City Council to decorate 
the walls of its Council Chamber with frescoes illustrating the 
judgments of great judges, tales of whose self-sacrificing devotion 
to justice have been handed down in history and legend. These 
frescoes have unfortunately perished. 

But with all his work on portraits and allegorical and histor- 
ical subjects, Holbein did not cease to paint pictures with 
religious subjects. To these early years in Basel belong two 
series of scenes from the Passion. The first cycle, which is 
superficially painted, was probably done hastily for purposes of 
temporary decoration, as for a church in Passion Week, or to 
take the place of a Passion Play. "The Last Supper," and "The 
Scourging," in this series, were each catalogued by Amerbach 
"one of H. Holbein's earliest works." The eight pictures in the second 
series were painted in the years 1520 and 1521 and are done in the 
manner of the "Cross Bearing," of 1515. The "Crucifixion" intro- 
duces a particularly beautiful figure in the mourning woman, to the 
left in the foreground, whose bearing in her grief is so nobly 
restrained. The "Entombment" is uncompromising in its realism; 
the face of the Christ bears all the traces of his recent agony; 



178 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART 

all beauty is sacrificed to the convincing presentation of suffering. 
Still more realistic is the " Christ in the Grave," in which the 
slender, finely modelled body lies rigid on a bier, the muscles 
still twisted, the wounds swollen, the eyes staring, the mouth 
open, every feature, every moment of his suffering mercilessly 
impressed on us. 

In two of the scenes a new influence is marked, that of 
Matthaus Griinewald, and as we stand before the snow-capped 
mountains in the "Bearing the Cross," or are made to realise the 
supernatural by the mysterious, weird light shed upon Christ and 
the disciples by the luminous angel hovering over them in the 
" Garden of Gethsemane," we recall that Holbein the Elder visited 
Isenheim in those last hard years of his earthly pilgrimage, and 
are convinced that the younger Hans did not fail to follow in 
his footsteps and see for himself the great altar there. 

Again we feel that influence in the " Holy Night " and " Adoration 
of the Kings," in the University Chapel in Freiburg Cathedral, 
whither they were brought from Basel after the Reformation. As 
in Baldung Grun's altar in the same Cathedral, the Child radiates 
a light which illumines all about him, and angels fill the sky 
with brightness and colour. Grunewald's influence on the young 
painter was not confined to colour and light, however, but 
makes itself felt- from this time forth in a greater fullness of 
form and softness of contour, in a forsaking of the fine, careful, 
"goldsmith's" manner of so many of the German artists, for 
the method of the painter who thinks in colour and models in 
light and shade. 

From this period date the shutters for the organ in Basel 
Cathedral — now in the Kunstsammlung — on which are painted in 
brown on brown, so that they are like beautiful statues carved in 
wood, Emperor Henry II, bearing a model of the Cathedral, 
Empress Kunigunde in the pose she assumes on so many Gothic 
portals, the Virgin as a stately, gracious, compassionate Mater 
Misericordia, St. Pantalus and music-making angels. 

Meanwhile Erasmus had come to Basel and was living with 
his publisher Froben. Naturally he became acquainted with the 
artist, the friend of Froben and illustrator of his "Praise of Folly." 




z * 




° 5 

H Oh 



2 ffl 

03 - 

O «! 

an o 

^ OS 

-72 o 

5 » 

■**■ a 



HANS HOLBEIN THE YOUNGER 179 

That their intercourse was constant is evident from three portraits 
Holbein painted in 1523, in which the great scholar, the keen thinker, 
the ironical critic of men and manners is made to live before our very 
eyes. The portrait in Longford Castle presents him in front of a 
green curtain and book shelves; he wears a fur-trimmed coat and a 
Doctor's cap. In the Louvre portrait we see him, again with a 
green curtain as background, writing at his desk; the hands are 
slender and finely veined, a vestige of a smile plays about the thin 
lips. The Basel portrait, which is painted on paper, is quite 
similar to the one in the Louvre, but the green curtain is plain 
while in the Louvre picture it is flowered. A fourth portrait, in 
Carlsruhe, is a replica of the one in Basel. 

From 1526 date the two half-length portraits of Dorothea 
Offenburg of Basel, which are now in the Kunstsammlung there. 
In the one she appears as Lais Corinthiaca, in a rich costume of 
the period; in the other, in a very similar robe, as Venus, with, 
beside her, a little Amour with an arrow. The exquisite rendering 
of the materials in the garments and the rich colouring lend these 
pictures a beauty which is not in the subject. 

In the same year the artist finished his masterpiece of religious 
painting, the "Madonna of the Meyer Family," now in the Castle in 
Darmstadt,* for one of his first patrons, Jacob Meyer, who was, how- 
ever, no longer Burgomaster of Basel, probably for the reason 
that he belonged to the Roman Catholic minority in the Ref- 
ormation movement. The picture presents the Virgin, wearing a 
deep blue robe with a red girdle, her pale green mantle thrown 
back so that the dignity of the form, the calm restfulness of the 
pose shall be revealed, standing in a shell-like niche, holding the 
Babe who leans his head on one little hand against her breast, 
while he extends the other to bless the kneeling family. The 
Virgin is of considerable beauty of feature, but her greatest charms 
are her noble serenity and the gentleness, tenderness and bene- 
ficence of her expression. To the right, kneel the women of 
Meyer's family; to the left, Jacob Meyer himself, in a fur-trimmed 
mantle, stalwart, sincere, earnest and devout; in front of him his 
son, a graceful youth whose arms are around a small, nude, baby 

* An excellent old copy is in Dresden Gallery. 



c- 



180 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART 

brother, lovely as a little cupid, who seems barely old enough to 
learn to walk. The picture has none of the stiffness common to 
votive pictures, but might be a free though exalted rendering of 
a family at prayer. The harmony of the deep, clear, glowing 
colours, so perfectly blended in the cool lighting of the closed 
room, is of marvellous beauty. 

When he had finished this Madonna picture, Holbein decided 
upon a visit to England, moved thereto, doubtless, by Erasmus's 
descriptions of the brilliant life at the court of a king who was an 
interested and generous patron of arts and letters. He set forth, 
therefore, armed with a letter of introduction from Erasmus to Petrus 
Aegidius in Antwerp asking him to introduce the German to Quentin 
Massys, then the greatest artist in the Netherlands, and one to his 
particular friend in England, Sir Thomas More, who received the 
artist as his guest and of whom he painted the first portrait done by 
him in England. It presents the statesman and scholar, in life 
size, half length, one hand resting in the other and lightly holding 
a paper. The face is strong, the gaze of the large, brown eyes 
direct and honest, the whole attitude of body and mind honour- 
able and distinguished. 

A second portrait, and perhaps the best of all those done during 
this visit to England, is that one of Warham, Archbishop of 
Canterbury, at seventy-one years of age, which still hangs in 
Lambeth Palace. It presents him in his robes, a white cotta 
over a scarlet cassock, and about his throat a great fur collar. 
The face is long and thin, the firm lips are tightly set, the eyes, 
rather sunken, look thoughtfully into the distance. It is a face 
that speaks of strength, decision and scholarship, as the attitude 
reveals dignity and authority. 

Nor were the Germans in London unmindful of the presence 
of their great countryman. From 1528 dates the portrait of the 
astronomer Nicholas Kratzer of Munich, a homely man with a very 
large nose and small bright eyes, who is characterised as determined 
and persistent. 

In this year Holbein returned to Basel, to his family and friends, 
leaving in England not only these finished pictures but many draw- 
ings for portraits which are now in Windsor Castle. 




Photograph by Franz Hanfstaengl 



HANS HOLBEIN 

Madonna of the Meter Family 
grand ducal palace, darmstadt 




Photograph by Ad. Braun et Cie 



HANS HOLBEIN 

Portrait of Erasmus 
louvre, paris 



HANS HOLBEIN THE YOUNGER 181 

Upon his return to Basel the City Council commissioned him 
to paint on the remaining wall of the Council Chamber, two scenes 
from the Old Testament, "Rehoboani Threatening the Elders of 
Israel" and "Samuel Reproving Saul with the Message from Jeho- 
vah, 'Obedience is better than Sacrifice."' These frescoes, too, have 
disappeared but the drawings in Basel Kunstsammlung permit us 
to know the composition of the pictures. In the former, Rehoboam 
sits enthroned in a Renaissance hall; behind a balustrade are the 
Elders toward whom the King leans with clenched fist, uttering his 
threat with great vigour and passion. In the background the ten 
tribes are crowning Jeroboam King. It is a finely unified historical 
picture. The other scene shows Samuel, a mighty prophet form, 
advancing across a plain to meet Saul, who is approaching with a 
great army. Unity is lacking in the picture owing to the absence 
of any central point of compelling interest, and the impressiveness 
of the figure of Samuel sinks into insignificance beside the army 
opposed to it in the composition. 

During this stay in Basel the artist painted the portrait of his 
wife and two children which is in the Kunstsammlung there. Frau 
Holbein's features are not beautiful, and the eyelids are strangely 
reddened as if by weeping, but the strength and repose in her 
personality are attractive and there is an appealing touch in 
the motherly tenderness with which she holds her little daughter 
tightly in her left arm, while her right hand rests on the shoulder 
of the handsome little son who stands beside her. 

To this sojourn we also owe the miniature of Melanchthon, 
in Hanover Museum, and the portraits of Erasmus in Parma and in 
Basel, which were probably done from former studies, however, as 
Erasmus was not in Basel at this time, but had gone to Freiburg to 
escape the agitation of the Reformation, which, in Basel, was assum- 
ing almost the character of a revolution. Nor was it an atmos- 
phere in which a painter could work. Men were, in the main, too 
much occupied with the burning questions of the day to sit for 
portraits, and religious representations were held in abhorrence 
as idolatrous. Holbein decided to flee from it to England, where 
in 1529, his friend Sir Thomas More had succeeded Cardinal Wolsey 
as Lord High Chancellor. But by the time he reached London, 



182 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART 

in 1532, More had fallen into disfavour and could do nothing for him 
at court. The artist's coming was welcomed, however, by the 
German merchants of the Steelyard, who at once accorded him an 
enthusiastic patronage, so that, before the close of the year, he painted 
portraits of three members of that circle — those of Hans of Ant- 
werp, the Goldsmith, in Windsor Castle; "A Young Man, aged 
29," in Vienna; and Georg Gisze from Danzig, in Berlin Gallery. 

The Gisze portrait is a masterpiece. It presents the handsome 
young merchant wearing a black cap which partly covers his thick 
brown hair, a coat of red silk over a chemisette of fine white lawn, 
a black cloak and large collar of black fur. He is seated at a table 
in his counting house and in the act of opening a letter, when, 
as if addressed, he has paused and raised his eyes to the spec- 
tator. On the table with the Persian cover are writing materials, 
a clock and a Venetian glass vase with carnations; on the walls 
of the room are a brass twine holder, keys, scales, letters, and on a 
shelf, a large book in leather binding. The vase and flowers, 
the brasses, the table cover and all the other still-life details are 
done with exquisite fineness and create such a beautiful colour har- 
mony in the soft, indoor light, that this corner of the room would 
make, in itself, a picture of rare loveliness. Yet these details are 
not given pre-eminence, and their beauties only come to our atten- 
tion as accessories to the lifelike central figure, so youthful, so soft 
in contour and fresh in colouring, yet so serious and so dignified 
in bearing. 

The next year the artist was called upon to design for the 
Steelyard merchants a reviewing stand for the festivities on the 
occasion of the coronation of Anne Boleyn. From the drawing, in 
the Weigel Collection, Leipsic, we learn that it was conceived as a 
Triumphal Arch, with a fountain at the top. In the centre, on a 
mountain, as it were, sits Apollo; at his feet is Calliope and on 
either side are four muses. 

The merchants then commissioned him to decorate the walls 
of their "Gold Hall" with scenes setting forth the "Triumph of 
Riches" and the "Triumph of Poverty." The sketches, in the 
Louvre, show that these were allegorical pictures similar in composi- 
tion to the Roman Triumphal Processions. 




Photograph by Franz Hanf. laengl 

HANS HOLBEIN* 
" Portrait of Georg Gisze 
kaiser friedrich museum, berlin 




Photograph by Franz Hanfstaengl 

HANS HOLBEIN 

Christine, Princess of Denmark and Widow or 

Francesco Sforza. Dike of Milan 

national gallery, london 



HANS HOLBEIN THE YOUNGER 183 

Though the painter was so busy with commissions from the 
Company, he did not cease painting portraits for individual members 
of it. To this year belong the portraits of "A Man, Aged 32," 
in Brunswick, "Dirk Tybis," in Vienna, "Dirk Born," in Windsor 
Castle, with a replica in Munich Pinakothek, and "A Young man," 
in Berlin Gallery. 

So many beautiful works could not fail to draw the attention 
of court circles once more to the artist, and in this same year he 
painted the portrait of the royal falconer, Robert Cheseman, a 
rugged, keen looking sportsman, who holds a hooded falcon as if 
just about to release it; and also, a masterpiece, the so-called "Am- 
bassadors," in the National Gallery, London. Jean de Dinteville, 
Ambassador from France and his friend George Selve, Bishop of 
Lavaur, who was paying him a visit, stand together in a room hung 
with green damask and paved with inlaid marbles. In the middle 
of the picture is a table with a Persian cover, on which are various 
astronomical instruments, a celestial globe, a case of flutes, a lute 
and an open music book. Our senses are taken captive by the 
beauty of materials and colour in the accessories, but again these are 
merely contributory, and the first, as well as the lasting impression, 
is of the lifelikeness, the dignity, nobility and reserve of the two 
young men portrayed. 

And now the King himself gave the great German the first 
of those many royal commissions which were to keep him engaged 
during the remaining years of his fife. He was to paint, over the 
fireplace in Whitehall, a family group consisting of Henry VIII 
and Jane Seymour, the late Henry VII and his Queen, Elizabeth of 
York. The picture was so seriously injured by fire that only the 
figures of Henry VTI and Henry VIII remain. In this fragment, 
as in the miniature of Henry VIII in the Earl of Spencer's collec- 
tion, Holbein gives the despotic, sensual monarch to the life, with- 
out flattery; yet he does not portray him as a libertine, as did some 
of the other artists who painted his portrait; he does not fail to make 
us feel that he is also a King and one who is not unaware of his 
power or blind to the dignity of his position. 

About the same time as the family group, Holbein painted 
the portrait of Jane Seymour, in Vienna, which presents the Queen, 



184 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART 

very simply, in half length, standing. But indeed a feeling of super- 
fluity would assuredly have resulted had any accessories been in- 
troduced beside the Queen's gorgeous robes of cloth of silver and 
purple velvet, trimmed with rich lace, embroidery and jewels, each 
detail of which is done with such faithfulness and delicacy. In spite 
of this minuteness, however, there is nothing small or hard about 
the picture. The Queen, nobly modelled, stands there as in life, 
looking out upon the world calmly, with clear, frank eyes, her lips 
set firmly, yet revealing kindliness and a sense of humour; to all 
appearances, a sane, sweet-natured woman, not wilful or of too 
positive a personality. As if to convey more fully this im- 
pression, the colouring is cool, the flesh tones very clear, with grey 
shadows. 

After Jane Seymour's death in the next year, the painter went 
to Brussels at the request of the King to paint the portrait of 
Christine of Denmark, the sixteen-year-old widow of the Duke of 
Sforza, in whom Henry VIII saw her possible successor. The 
portrait, which is now in the National Gallery, presents a tall, 
slender, young woman in black, with big, innocent eyes and child- 
like, almost appealing expression. But the King's wooing proved 
unsuccessful, so Holbein was again dispatched to Flanders, to 
paint for him the portrait of Anna of Cleves, marriage with whom 
was so strongly advocated by his Protestant counsellors. The 
future Queen is pictured wearing a rich, velvet robe of brilliant 
yet deep red, with much gold trimming and many jewels. She is 
plain-looking, with a large nose, dull eyes, and an expression of 
countenance which betrays a degree of narrow-mindedness which 
comes perilously near stupidity. 

While on the continent this time, Holbein made use of the 
opportunity to visit his family in Basel, whereupon the City Council 
offered him a pension and various other inducements if he would 
remain there permanently. Henry VIII was equally generous, 
however, and bestowed upon his painter an annual retainer of thirty 
pounds sterling. Besides this, there were many profitable commis- 
sions assured to him at the English court, while, in Basel, condi- 
tions were still most unfavourable for the artist. Many of the 
finest works of art had been or were being destroyed by the 



HANS HOLBEIN THE YOUNGER 185 

"picture stormers," whose procedure is described in a letter from 
Erasmus to Willibald Pirkheimer: "Smiths and carpenters were 
sent to remove the images from the churches. The roods and the 
unfortunate saints were cruelly handled. Not a statue was left in 
church, niche or monastery. The saints on the walls were white- 
washed. Everything combustible was burnt. What would not 
burn was broken to pieces. Nothing was spared, however precious 
and beautiful." So the artist decided in favour of England and 
returned there in time to paint a miniature of Anne of Cleve's suc- 
cessor, Queen Katherine Howard, before her tragic end. Of her 
uncle, Thomas Howard, he painted an impressive portrait, which 
presents an elderly man of masterly carriage, with eagle nose and 
thin lips tightly set, as if in grim determination. 

Yet another member of the royal family did Holbein paint — the 
small son of Jane Seymour, afterwards Edward VT, whose portrait 
the artist gave to the King for Christmas, 1539, when the boy was 
little more than a year old. It is a half-length picture of the babe, in 
life size, wearing a red velvet dress with sleeves of gold brocade, and 
a red hat with a white ostrich plume, and holding in his right hand 
a rattle. On the railing behind which he is placed, is a tribute to 
the King in the Latin inscription which admonishes the boy to 
"emulate his father; he cannot surpass him in any of the ele- 
ments of greatness; if he can but equal him, all the noblest wishes 
for him will be fulfilled." 

Many of the lords and ladies at the court also sat for portraits, 
which are now scattered throughout various galleries in England, on 
the continent and in America. Among them are the portraits of 
Nicholas Poyns; Sir Richard Southwell, the King's favourite; Sir 
Nicholas Carew, the Royal Master of the Horse; George of Corn- 
wall; Lady Elizabeth Yaux; Sir William Butts, the King's physician, 
and his wife; Dr. John Chambers; Lady Dudley; the three-year-old 
Charles Brandon and his brother Henry; Lady Surrey; the Duchess 
of Sutherland; Lady Lester; John Poyns; Sir Charles Eliot; John 
Godsalve, and many others, among them several that have not yet 
been identified with any particular individual or given a name. 
Among the foreigners at court whose portraits Holbein painted 
were the young Dutchman, Vos van Steenwyck, whose portrait, in 



186 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART 

Vienna, is done in the brown tone which marks it as belonging 
to the artist's early period, and the distinguished Sieur de Morette, 
whose portrait, painted after 1534, and now in Dresden Gallery, 
is one of Holbein's most beautiful works. It presents, against a 
green curtain, a large man, with dark hair and beard lightly 
touched with grey, dressed in black silk with puffings of fine white 
lawn in the sleeves, and a fur collar; in his left hand he holds his 
gloves, in his right a dagger which hangs from a chain. The model- 
ling of head and hands is exquisite, the flesh tones are light and clear, 
the presence is commanding, the glance compelling. 

Then, suddenly, in the middle of this his most productive 
period, Holbein was stricken with the Plague and died in 1543. 

No study of this artist would be quite complete without some 
reference to his drawings for woodcuts. We have spoken of his 
earliest, in Basel, 1515, for Erasmus's "Praise of Folly." In Basel 
Kunstsammlung are his illustrations for the Kebes-tafel — a picture of 
all human life — which were drawn in 1521 and used first in Froben's 
edition of Tertullius. He worked them over during his second stay 
in Basel, in the years between 1528 and 1532, and they appeared 
in their new form in Froben's "Curio's Cornucopia," in 1532. 
They contain many antique, classical and mythological figures, but 
also many scenes from the daily life of the people, with Lanzknechte 
and peasants. Ornamented with similar pictures from life are a 
"Kirmess Alphabet" and a "Children's Alphabet. " Of Bible illus- 
trations there remain ninety-four pictures for the Old Testament and 
twenty-one for the Book of Revelations. Like all the other artists 
of the period, he had a share in the Lutheran controversies; his 
cuts picturing the "Sale of Indulgences" and "Pedlar of Indulgences" 
satirise the crying abuse of the age; while in a satirical Passion 
cycle he represents monks and priests as the persecutors of Christ. 
Perhaps his most interesting drawings for woodcuts are those in the 
so-called "Dance of Death," a series of forty -five plates done in 1536, 
which picture Death overtaking people of all ages and of all ranks. 
Kings and Emperors, Popes and Cardinals, must all follow his sum- 
mons, as do the ploughman in the field and the little child in the 
peasant's hut. The life, movement and dramatic power in these 
Bmall cuts are remarkable, and the atmospheric quality obtained in 



HANS HOLBEIN THE YOUNGER 187 

such a landscape as that in which the old man is ploughing is rare 
and seductive. 

Holbein's claim to greatness must, however, be based on his 
portraits. In these his habit was to seize the salient, fundamental 
characteristics of the people he painted and to give them di- 
rectly, though with reserve. Imperfections were not exaggerated, 
but rather passed over in favor of beauty of form; thus his por- 
traits, though natural, are all sufficiently idealised, where neces- 
sary, to make them beautiful works of art and not mere records 
of physical conformations, peculiarities or defects. The poses of 
his subjects are always natural and free — that also lay within 
the artist's gift — and their personalities are revealed to us as at 
a casual meeting with a real and living person; yet as at a 
casual meeting, only, in refined society, and not, as occasionally in 
Diirer's and almost always in Rembrandt's portraits, as if we met 
them at a moment when, in some spiritual crisis, or under the 
stress of some overpowering emotion, their very souls are laid 
bare to our gaze. And these cultivated, reserved people are por- 
trayed in colours fresh, glowing and blended into wondrous harmony. 
The flesh tones are like life, the texture and finish of materials are 
exquisitely given. The atmosphere is always that of well-bred ease; 
always dignified and serious, it is occasionally elevated to the 
poetic by the pure, sensuous beauty of the colouring. Unfailingly 
such harmony reigns as to bring to the heart a sense of peace and 
benediction and joy in the beautiful. 



PART rv 
SCHOOL OF NUREMBERG OR FRANCONIA 
INCLUDING TYROL 



CHAPTER XXV 
THE TYROLESE PAINTERS 

Salzburg and Vicinity: Rueland Frueauf. 

Innsbruck: Sebastian Scheel — Paul Dax. 

Brdcen: Master with the Scorpion — Jacob Sunter — Andre" Haller. 

Bruneck: Michael Pacher. 

IN Tyrol small schools of art developed in the latter half of the XV 
century in Salzburg, Innsbruck, Brixen and Bruneck, each of 
which can boast at least one interesting artist, while one of them, 
Bruneck, produced one of the greatest artists of the century, Michael 
Pacher. 

In the southeast, near Salzburg, in the village of Grossgmain 
worked the painter, Rueland Frueauf, who, until recently, was known 
simply as the Master of Grossgmain, from his altar in the parish 
church there. The panels remaining in the church represent, on gold 
backgrounds, the Presentation, Christ disputing with the Lawyers, 
the Descent of the Holy Ghost, and the Death of the Virgin. They 
reveal an original master, an interesting personality. In the Pentecost 
scene, for example, each of the disciples and apostles has distinct 
individuality, and, while all are equally interested in the miracle, each 
receives the wondrous descent in a manner which is expressive of his 
own personality. Some of the figures and faces possess considerable 
refinement, others are homely and coarse. The artist delights in the 
bony structure of the human frame; he models the hands and 
feet carefully and makes them prominent in his pictures. 
Swabian influence is evident in the types, the simplicity of the 
draperies and especially in the directness with which the stories 
are told. The Death of the Virgin, too, is presented according 
to Swabian tradition, with the dying Virgin kneeling in prayer 
supported by a disciple. 

Four panels by this master, in Vienna Gallery, representing scenes 
from the Passion, which are signed with the initials R. F. have led to 
his identification as Rueland Frueauf, of whom it was previously 

191 



192 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART 

known that he painted frescoes in the City Hall in Passau, 
in 1471. 

A school of but little importance developed in Innsbruck, 
where the earliest painter of consequence was Sebastian Scheel, 
several of whose works are in the Ferdinandeum in his native 
town. The largest and most interesting among them is the altar- 
piece representing the Holy Kinship, dated 1517. It is set in a 
frame richly ornamented with arabesques and with half-length 
figures of the royal ancestors of Christ, in miniature. On the 
base is the sleeping Jesse, from whom springs the genealogical 
tree of Christ; in the arch at the top is God the Father with 
globe and cross, his fingers raised in blessing. The figures in 
the central section are portraits of real people, dressed in the 
costumes peculiar to that age and made of the richest brocaded 
materials. There is a strained intentness about their attitudes 
which seems hardly natural or wholly sincere. The children are 
very sturdy in their straight, full dresses, but they, too, seem a 
trifle self-conscious. The two angels making music in the sky are 
like those in Italian pictures of the period. In the background 
is a city, set, like Innsbruck itself, at the foot of a mountain. 
The impression of the whole picture is one of over-crowding, 
over-ornamentation and sentimental exaggeration, an impression 
which is heightened by the intensity of the local colours. 

A younger contemporary of Sebastian Scheel was Paul Dax, 
who was a native of Sterzing, but whose life as an artist was 
spent in Innsbruck, where he died in 1561. As no authentic 
paintings remain except his portrait of himself in the costume of 
a Landsknecht, in the Ferdinandeum, he is remembered chiefly 
as the designer of the windows in the Hofkirche. 

In Brixen the chief treasury of art is the cloister of the Cathe- 
dral where walls and ceilings have been frescoed by many [masters, 
who are still, for the most part, nameless. Unfortunately for all 
purposes of research, these frescoes have been thoroughly restored. 
Three of them, representing the Crucifixion, Ecce Homo, and Christ 
disputing with the Lawyers, were painted between 1435 and 1464 by 
a master who has been named by Semper "The Master with the 
Scorpion," as this sign always appears in his pictures. He seems to 



THE TYROLESE PAINTERS 193 

have been more interested in portraying the scene of the Crucifixion 
than any other, as, besides this one in Brixen, another representa- 
tion of it from his hand is in the Clerical Seminary in Freising 
and there are two in the Ferdinandeum, Innsbruck. They are all 
very similar in character; the people are vulgar, even brutal in 
type, with large features and staring eyes; the thieves are tied 
to their crosses in distorted positions. The artist endeavours 
to give a realistic presentation, but is so crude in his methods 
that he succeeds only in leaving an impression of unpleasant 
exaggeration. 

The works of Jacob Sunter who, in 1-470, painted "The En- 
tombment," and, in 1471, "The Resurrection," in the Cathedral, 
have been so retouched that it is impossible to form any idea of 
their original qualities. Two of his pictures, "The Adoration of the 
Kings" and "The Betrothal of the Virgin" are in the Museum in 
Vienna. 

A Brixen master of the XVI century who seems to have 
worked, for the most part, in Innsbruck was Andre Haller, who 
painted two altar wings now in the Ferdinandeum, on which are 
presented St. Erasmus and St. Nicholas, St. Roch and St. 
Sebastian. The saints, who are given standing, against a curtain 
stretched across the gold background, are very tall and large in their 
very full, elaborately draped garments, but fail to be imposing be- 
cause of over-refined modelling and excessive sentimentality of 
poses and expressions. 

To the neighbouring town of Bruneck belongs one of the greatest 
artists of the second half of the XV century, Michael Pacher, who was 
born between 1430 and 1440 and died in 1498. 

In the Pacher family there were three brothers, all artists — 
Michael, Friedrich and Hans. No known work by Hans Pacher 
remains. Friedrich's most important work is an altar-piece, repre- 
senting the Baptism of Christ, which was painted in 1483 for the 
Hospital Church in Brixen and is now in the Clerical Seminary 
in Freising. But these two drop into insignificance beside their 
great brother Michael. The earliest of his works is the "Madonna 
and Child with St. Barbara, St. Margaret and Angels" in the 
collection of Fraulein von Vintler, in Bruneck. The Virgin and 



194 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART 

saints are so modelled as to show the importance the artist at- 
tached to the scientific side of his art, but there is no undue 
emphasis laid on the bony and muscular structure, nor is it by 
any means the modelling that strikes us first or impresses us most 
in the picture. Rather is the impression gained one of a beautiful 
and stately company in a mood of joyful exaltation — an effect 
which is heightened by the prevailing flame-red of the garments 
against the gold background. 

In the little church in Mitterolang, in the Pusterthal, is the 
artist's "Holy Night," in which the stable and its manger are pic- 
tured in just such a valley as the Pusterthal. Weather beaten, 
kindly shepherds have come from the distant hills to worship the 
lovely Babe; ox and ass, much larger than they are given by other 
painters of the time, and astonishingly lifelike in appearance and 
expression, stand close by the holy pair. As the picture has been 
retouched, we cannot judge of its original colouring; the flame- 
red of the von Vintler picture is, however, still favoured in the 
garments. 

The scattered wings of a great altar which was painted by the 
master for Brixen Cathedral, where it was dedicated in 1491, have 
been collected and set up in Munich Pinakothek. They present 
four Church Fathers and four scenes from the Life of St. Wolfgang — 
Preaching, Healing a Sick Man, Compelling the Devil to hold his 
Bible, and the Last Communion. The scenes from the life of 
the saint are pictured in varying, appropriate surroundings. Thus 
the miracle of healing takes place in a large room, with flat ceiling, 
lighted from the Gothic windows on the right. St. Wolfgang, by his 
touch, is restoring to health a sick man who, looking up anxiously 
into his face, is making an effort to rise from his couch. The in- 
troduction of the nude, as in the body of this man, is rare in Ger- 
man art of the XV century and again emphasises the artist's in- 
terest in the study of the human form. 

In the Last Communion, the saint, wearing his Bishop's robes of 
rich brocade and his mitre, has fallen on his knees upon the steps of 
the altar of a simple little Gothic chapel; he is prostrated, his face 
buried in his hands, in utter weakness of body and humility of soul. 
Through the upper window an angel has entered and with out- 




Photograph hy Fried. Hoefle, Augsburg 

MICHAEL PACHER 

St. Wolfgang's Last Communion 

alte pinakothek, munich 




Photograph by Fried. Hoefle, Augsburg 

MICHAEL PACHER 

St. Wolfgang compelling the Devil to hold His Bible 
alte pinakothek, munich 



THE TYROLESE PAINTERS 195 

stretched wings hovers above the saint, touching him lightly to call 
attention to the glorious golden pyx he holds in his right hand, 
treasury of that supreme solace, that heavenly bread which whoso 
eateth thereof shall never hunger more. But more than by the great 
hovering angel or the shining sacrament our attention is held by 
the kneeling figure. Such abandonment, such utter prostration of 
body and mind, such passionate abnegation, almost, one would 
say — such despair! 

Directly contrasted with the effect of subdued light in the interior of 
a room in which these two scenes are presented, is the bright sunshine 
which falls on the street in which is pictured St. Wolfgang constrain- 
ing the devil — a fearsome devil, surely, with horns and hoofs and 
great bat's wings — to hold the Bible for him. Behind the two 
imposing figures opens the perspective of a city street, across which is a 
balcony on which three persons are standing, while a man is sitting 
below in the shade of a building, out of a window of which 
another man is looking. 

The Fathers of the Church are presented in heroic size, each 
with his symbol, seated in Gothic niches which are adorned with 
elaborate carvings and small statuettes of apostles, each of whom 
bears the instrument of his martyrdom. Their faces and hands are 
painted with minute care and are individualised in the highest degree. 
The artist's conception of them is of great nobility. True Fathers of 
the Church are these, so large and noble in body, mind and spirit 
and withal so human, so sympathetic; great souls to whom the 
Dove of the Holy Ghost, which is hovering over them, can whisper 
and be understood. 

Michael Pacher's masterpiece and one of the most beautiful 
and impressive single altar-pieces of the XV century, is the High 
Altar in the Church in St. Wolfgang, near Salzburg, for which he 
received the commission from Abbot Benedict in 1477. The shrine 
is dated 1479; the whole work was finished in 1481. 

The altar is set in a beautifully carved Gothic frame. In the 
shrine, in wood carving, also from Pacher's hand, is the "Coronation 
of the Virgin. " Very girlish and lovely, her long, wavy hair falling 
about her shoulders like a veil, the crowned Virgin kneels at the 
feet of Christ, who is blessing her. Graceful, winged angels hold 
her full, trailing robes, make music, or simply hover around as 



196 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART 

interested spectators. Separated from this central group by finely 
carved pilasters like pinnacles, are two stately bishops. Between 
the shrine and the wings stand the youthful, finely modelled, 
knightly Saints George and Florian. And all these figures are 
set in niches, or under baldachins carved as finely and delicately 
as lace work, marvellously beautiful. 

Besides the carvings there are on the altar-piece sixteen painted 
pictures on the base and in the arch. The wings beside the shrine 
contain four scenes from the Life of the Virgin; when they are 
closed, eight scenes from the Life of Christ are revealed. When the 
second pair of wings is closed in turn, the outside of the altar shows 
four scenes from the life of the patron saint of the town and church, 
St. Wolfgang. On the base is the Adoration of the Kings; above 
the central pictures, Christ on the Cross, with four saints; above 
that, God the Father, saints and angels. 

The influence of Mantegna and his great frescoes in the Ere- 
mitani Chapel in the not far distant Padua is evident in the model- 
ling and perspective. Figures and poses like those of St. George 
and St. Florian at once call to mind the Italian master, as do the 
presentations of numerous figures as they are seen from beneath 
in foreshortening. The types are not Italian, however; the Vir- 
gin and angels in the central carved scene, as in the pictures, 
are wholly German, and are not idealised, though they are 
tender, winsome and charming. In the Adoration, angels play 
in the lofts above, and through the open door at the back a 
glimpse is given of a street, and, in the distance, of a landscape 
with hills and valleys against a patterned gold ground. In the 
scenes from the Passion are some fine Gothic buildings, in which 
Michael Pacher shows a fondness for the coloured stones so 
favoured in Italy. The types are all dignified; the tormentors of 
the Christ, though sinister, are not wholly monsters. The Adul- 
teress before Christ is one of the most interesting and dramatic 
scenes. The humble, penitent woman in the beautiful and 
fashionable robes is given to the life, as are the threatening 
Pharisees with their evil faces, in such contrast to the gentle 
Christ. 

Most beautiful of all are the scenes from the Life of the Vir- 



THE TYROLESE PAINTERS 197 

gin, in which the dignified, gracious people are presented naturally, 
even intimately, yet always with reverence. In these, as in the 
other pictures of the altar, one of the most interesting and original 
points is the landscape setting of the scenes, which is always 
among the mountains of Pacher's native Tyrol, whose snow-capped 
peaks are lighted, now by the breaking dawn, now by the 
roseate sunset. 

Michael Pacher was an artist of large, dignified, serene concep- 
tions who had attained to such a mastery of the technique of his 
art — of composition, modelling, perspective and light — that it 
had become for him a language not wholly inadequate for their 
voicing. Original as he was in all his work, he was unique in the 
landscape setting he chose for his scenes, in the character of which, 
as in its oftentimes quite fanciful lighting, he was the true forbear 
of Altdorfer. 



CHAPTER XXVI 

UPPER BAVARIA 

PAINTERS IN MUNICH AND LANDSHUT 

Munich: Gabriel Mochselkirchner — Ulrich Futerer — Hans Olmdorfer — 

Jan Pollack — Hans Mielich — Hans Schopfer. 
Landshut : Hans Wertinger. 

THE early art of Upper Bavaria, especially of Munich and the 
neighbouring towns, is the crudest in all Germany. The 
series of scenes from the Passion painted as late as 1480 by 
Gabriel Mochselkirchner for Tegernsee Cloister — two of which are 
now in Schleissheim Castle Gallery — are revolting in the coarseness 
of their types and the brutality of their conceptions. The people 
are short and stocky, with thick noses, wide mouths and insignifi- 
cant chins. Their movements are, for the most part, unpleasantly 
exaggerated. The flesh tones are brown, with startling, white, high 
lights. There is little colour in the pictures, as most of the people 
who do not wear dingy brown robes wear white, and even the sky 
is cloudy and dark. 

A Crucifixion painted about the same date by Ulrich Futerer, 
a painter who worked with Mochselkirchner at Tegernsee, reveals 
the same coarse vigour. In this picture only the flesh is given its 
natural colour, or rather is tinted reddish brown with white fights; 
the rest is done in stone-grey colour against a dark background. 

Much more attractive is the High Altar in the little chapel of the 
nunnery in Blutenburg near Munich, by Hans Olmdorfer, who was 
court painter to successive Dukes of Bavaria from 1460 to 1518. 
The central section contains a representation of the Trinity, in 
which God the Father, on whose shoulder sits the Dove, holds the 
dead Christ in his arms so that all may see the marks of his suffer- 
ing. Angels look out from the sky above and kneel on the ground 
below. On the right wing is shown the Coronation of the Virgin by 
the Trinity, represented by three men who look exactly alike; on 
the left wing is the Baptism of Christ. On the outer sides of the 

198 



UPPER BAVARIA 199 

wings are St. Bartholomew, as founder of the church, and Christ 
as World-Ruler. On two small separate altars in the church — de- 
tached wings of the High Altar — are the Annunciation and the 
Adoration of All Saints. 

The influence of the artists of the Netherlands is apparent in all the 
pictures, though the gold background is retained. The types adopted 
from Dirk Bouts and Hans Mending are coarsened. The noses of 
men and angels alike are very long with thick ends; their necks, 
cheeks and foreheads are much wrinkled and creased. The flesh 
tones are brownish with red shadows. All are very vigorous looking 
and extremely serious in expression and demeanour. So much gold 
is used in the background, in the brocaded robes and for crowns and 
halos that the glitter is rather disturbing. The general effect of the 
pictures, however, is festive, though it is probable that they would not 
prove so attractive in any other setting than the quiet of this tiny, 
white chapel of the nuns. 

Hans Olmdorfer's portrait of one of his ducal patrons, Sigmund of 
Bavaria, in Schleissheim Castle Gallery, is coarsely painted, but full of 
life and expression. 

The most gifted Munich painter was Jan Pollack, whose work 
belongs to the period of transition from the XV to the XVI century. 
His name appears on the records for the first time in 1484; in 1488 he 
became City Painter; he died in 1519. The High Altar painted by 
him in 1492 for the Franciscan Church in Munich, and now in the 
Bavarian National Museum, represents, in the central section, the 
Crucifixion, with, on the back, the Last Supper; on the left wing, 
Gethsemane, with, on the back, the Scourging, into which is introduced 
the portrait of the donor, Duke Albrecht IV of Bavaria; on the right 
wing, Christ taken Prisoner, with, on the back, the Cross Bearing, 
with the portrait of the Duchess Kunigunde. The scenes are 
crowded with figures, all of whom appear to be constantly and 
rather violently in motion. In such a picture as "The Crucifixion" 
a rather close examination is necessary before the subject can be 
discovered and the various groups singled out. The people are 
crowded so closely about the cross that it loses its dominant position 
and sinks almost to the level of one of the many incidents with 
which the scene is filled. Attitudes, characteristics and emotions 



200 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART 

of every sort are exaggerated in the presentation; the bodies of 
the thieves are horribly contorted, the soldiers at the cross are 
unreasonably brutal, the men quarrelling about their dice-throwing 
are repellent degenerates. 

Jan Pollack's most important work is the large altar-piece con- 
taining twelve scenes from the life of St. Peter, which he painted about 
the year 1500 for St. Peter's Church in Munich. Five of the wings 
are still in the church with the shrine, which is filled with wood 
carvings; one has been lost and six have been set up in the Bavarian 
National Museum. The canvases are not quite so crowded as in 
the Franciscan Church altar, but the unprepossessing people are 
just as energetic and gesticulatory. The problem of perspective 
seems to have interested the painter greatly and he delights in giving 
us, as in " St. Peter healing One possessed of a Devil," a city square 
with a view through an arcade into the interior of a great temple; 
or, in "St. Peter walking on the Waves," the view across the water 
to distant towns on the opposite shore; or aerial perspective, as in 
the large body of Simon the Sorcerer floating high in air in the scene 
in which Saints Peter and Paul bring about his downfall. The col- 
ours in all the pictures are strong and dark and so inharmonious 
that they accentuate the general effect of over-crowding and unrest. 

The foremost Munich painter in the XVI century was Hans 
Mielich — or Miilich — who was born in 1516, in Munich, and died there 
in 1573. His first teacher was his father, Wolfgang Mielich, who was 
a well-known artist and head of a large school, though, unfortunately, 
none of his pictures have come down to us. That Hans Mielich's 
travels as a student took him to Italy, is established by his copy of 
Michael Angelo's "Last Judgment," originally painted to hang in the 
Frauenkirche in Munich as a memorial to the parents of Oswald von 
Eyck, but now in the Bavarian National Museum. He seems 
also to have come in touch with Altdorfer, for his miniatures illus- 
trating the "Penitential Psalms of Orlando di Lasso" and the "Motets 
of Cyprian de Rore," in the Royal Library in Munich, reveal a con- 
stant striving after the Ratisbon master's effects of light and col- 
our. As a painter, Hans Mielich was active chiefly as a portrait- 
ist. He presents his subjects naturally enough, though somewhat 
stiffly, and his colouring is pleasing. 




Photograph by Franz Hanfstaengl 

JAN POLLACK 
St. Peter Walking on the Waves 
bavarian national museum, munich 



UPPER BAVARIA 201 

A contemporary of Mielich, Hans Schopfer, who lived in 
Munich from 1532 to 15GG, was a prolific portrait painter. The 
people he portrays all bear a singular resemblance to one another; 
the flesh tones are pink, the eyes large and staring. A son of this 
artist, Hans Schopfer the Younger, continued to paint portraits in 
his father's style in Munich as late as 1610. 

In the neighbouring Bavarian town of Landshut Hans Wertinger, 
called also Schwabmaler, worked from 1-191 to 1533 as court painter, 
first to George the Rich, then to Ludwig X of Bavaria. Although 
his many portraits of noble personages of the time are hard in modelling 
and reveal no depth of insight, they are superficially quite attractive 
in their faithful recording of externalities, in the effective settings 
and attitudes of the subjects and in the freshness of the colouring. 



CHAPTER XXVII 

RATISBON 

ALBRECHT ALTDORFER 

FOR all its political importance and its imposing architectural 
monuments, Ratisbon could boast of no great artist before 
the opening years of the XVI century, when Albrecht Alt- 
dorfer established himself there as painter, engraver and architect 
and, in 1505, acquired citizenship. That he prospered, we deduce 
from his purchases of houses and a garden; that he was held in high 
esteem by his fellow citizens, is evident from his election to the 
Inner Council of the city. A devoted adherent of Luther, he was 
one of the fifteen councillors who, in 1533, passed the resolution 
adopting the Lutheran form of worship for the services in the Ratis- 
bon churches. He died in 1538. 

Of his life and studies before 1505 we know little. An Ulrich 
Altdorfer is mentioned as a painter in Ratisbon in 1478; doubtless 
he was the father of Albrecht and his first teacher. His wander- 
ings as a student seem to have taken him to Diirer, for the influence 
of the Nuremberg master on the development of his art is very 
marked. That a lasting friendship was established between the 
two artists would appear from Heller's record that, in the collection 
of the Nuremberg print-dealer Frauenholz, in 1822, there was a 
red crayon drawing of an old man by Albrecht Durer which bore 
an inscription to the effect that it had been presented by him to 
Altdorfer at Ratisbon in 1509. Then, having, as it were, formed 
his style upon Durer's, "Little Albrecht," as he is sometimes 
called to distinguish him from the great Albrecht of Nuremberg, 
came under the magic charm of Grunew aid's colour and light. So 
far, the history of his development is the same as that of the 
Strassburg master Hans Baldung Griin. Indeed these two painters 
suggest each other frequently, in the fulness of their forms, the 
poetry of their conceptions, in a certain fancifulness and in their 

202 




Photograph by the Berlin Photographic Society 

ALBRECHT ALTDORFER 

Satyr Family in a Landscape 

kaiser friedrich museum, berlin 




Photograph hy Franz Hanjslaengl 



ALBRECHT ALTDORFER 

St. George in a Beech Forest 
alte pinakothek, munich 



ALBRECHT ALTDORFER 203 

effects in colour and light. Altdorfer is, however, incomparably 
more positive in his nature and gifts than Baldung, more origi- 
nal, creative and virile. He is not merely fanciful, but genuinely 
imaginative and is possessed of a depth of insight and power of 
realistic representation which enable him at times to reach the 
heights of tragedy. 

Altdorfer's earliest dated paintings were done in the year 
1507. The "Satyr Family," in Berlin Gallery, painted in that year, 
presents, against a grove of trees whose leaves the sunlight 
touches into quivering, shimmering brightness, a seated group of 
a satyr and a nude woman with full, rounded form, and a chubby 
babe who is reaching out energetically toward one of the tall 
flowers that grow all about them. A nude man is wading in a 
stream that flows through an opening between the trees to the 
right. Through this clearing can be seen a wide stretch of 
country with towering rocky peaks in the background. 

The landscape, which in the "Satyr Family" is barely secondary 
in interest to the human element, becomes the real theme of the 
little picture, "St. George and the Dragon," in Munich Pinakothek, 
painted in 1510. A veritable fairy forest is before us; elusive, en- 
chanting lights and shadows play among the trees whose leaves are 
shining bronze-green in the sunlight. St. George in his golden 
armour, mounted on a white charger, is but an enlivening detail of 
the landscape. 

Near this picture in the Pinakothek hangs one of the same size 
from which the human element has been left out; it is the first picture 
in German art which is purely a landscape. Old writers tell of other 
landscapes from this artist's hand, but they have vanished. Many 
of his backgrounds, however, far from being mere backgrounds 
are notable landscapes. In the presentation of a landscape he 
breaks away from the old habit of reproducing it topographically 
or geologically — if I may use the term — and treats it atmospher- 
ically, giving us its moods, or rather, letting it reflect and reveal 
the moods of the people who are pictured in it, or the nature and 
significance of the scenes for which it is a setting. In this he hints 
at the coming of those artists who filled a place in painting similar 
to that occupied in literature by such nature poets as Wordsworth 



204 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART 

and Shelley, with whose joy all nature rejoices, in whose solemn or 
pensive moods all created things seem to bear "the burden and 
the weight of all this unintelligible world." 

From the same year as the "St. George" dates the "Rest on the 
Flight into Egypt," conceived with much charm and tender play of 
fancy. In the foreground is an elaborate Renaissance fountain, 
beside which sits the girlish, round-faced Virgin, in a simple costume 
of the period, holding the beautifully formed, nude Babe so that he 
can splash with his hands in the water. The aged Joseph, in peas- 
ant's garb, has brought his hat full of cherries which he now offers 
to her, his adoring gaze, like hers, fixed on the Child who is playing 
so happily. About them, as playmates for the Child, are bewitch- 
ing, sturdy, small cherubs, wearing short dresses and stiff little 
wings. Their activities are varied: two are sitting on the rim of 
the fountain, and talking together; one is busy with a long 
stick; one is making a great effort to scramble out of the water; one 
is swinging toward the Holy Child, with arms outstretched in loving 
invitation. The conception and, especially, the cherubs, recall 
Diirer's "Rest on the Flight into Egypt," in his series of woodcuts of 
the Life of the Virgin. In the background is a ruin, a tower character- 
istically German in its architecture, a house with high gables, a river 
on the banks of which are hills covered with trees, and, in the remote 
distance, mountains over which float fleecy clouds. On the base 
of the fountain is the inscription: "Albrecht Altdorfer, painter, 
of Ratisbon, dedicates this gift with devout heart to thee, Holy 
Virgin, for the welfare of his soul." 

To this same period belongs the "Adoration of the Kings" in 
Sigmaringen Castle. Beside the ruins of a castle sits the lovely, 
youthful Virgin, holding the beautiful Babe, to whom the three 
kings of the orient, arrayed in robes of the utmost richness, with 
fur and jewelled trimmings, bring gifts which are not only costly 
but masterpieces of the goldsmith's art. Behind the little group 
stretches a long arcade, the arches of which are supported by 
slender groups of pillars with graceful Renaissance capitals. A 
ruined wall divides the picture across the middle distance, thus 
shutting off into the background the retinues of the three kings. 
Over the whole picturesque ruin vines climb or hang gracefully 




Photograph by Fram Hanfstaengl 



ALBRECHT ALTDORFER 

Rest on the Flight into Egypt 
kaiser friedrich museum berlin 




Photograph by F. Bruckmann A-G, Munich 

ALBRECHT ALTDORFER 

Holy Night 
imperial gallery, vienna 



ALBRECHT ALTDORFER 205 

pendant. A light haze seems to fill the air and the Star shining 
through it bathes the scene in soft silvery light. 

The remarkable lighting in two pictures of the Nativity, in 
Bremen and in Vienna, is of exquisite beauty, and lends a certain 
effect of unearthliness to the scenes. The one shows the Virgin 
kneeling in a ruined castle, adoring the Child. Only some stone 
walls are left standing and some fine old doorways, through one of 
which the shepherds are entering, carrying a lantern. Overhead 
are rafters on which tiny angels have alighted. Several of them 
are proceeding by way of a long ladder to come down to the 
ground on which lies the Holy Babe. Some, indeed, have reached 
his side and kneel there in attitudes which are in themselves caresses; 
one, in his haste, has tumbled through between the rafters and is 
rolling on the ground; another is hurrying to catch a bundle of straw 
which one of his little friends is about to toss down from the loft. 
Two are half way down the ladder, and Joseph, at its foot, is carefully 
holding his lantern high to light them on their way. One sturdy 
little one on the third rung from the top has a lantern of his own 
which he is holding so as to light the one who is just starting out. 
Between the rafters shines a crescent moon. The fitful light from 
the lanterns, together with that of the pale moon in a sky that is full 
of small fleecy clouds, creates an atmosphere in which the supernatural 
seems the natural and a vision more to be expected than a matter-of- 
fact reality. 

Inthesecond "Holy Night," in Vienna Imperial Gallery, dated 1515, 
the scene is also set in a ruined castle, but the pavement, the doorways, 
and the landscape that opens up in the background are all white with 
snow. The light of Joseph's lantern falls full on the Babe whom the 
Virgin and two small, curly-haired cherubs are adoring, while a third 
perched on the gateway above, makes music on his viol. From the 
right, women as graceful as Botticelli's nymphs are advancing, 
bearing gifts; from the background come hurrying cherubs. But 
the angels that are on the earth make no appreciable difference 
in the number in the countless host which circles in the sky above, 
filling it with light, which, shining through the mists of evening, 
takes on all the colours of the rainbow and casts a glory over the 
whole scene. 



206 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART 

In yet another Nativity, which forms a panel of the altar painted 
in 1517, which is in the Collection of the Historical Society, Ratisbon, 
the scene is pictured in the light of the first rays of dawn, which are 
spreading rosily above the distant, snow-clad mountains. 

The "Birth of the Virgin," in Munich Pinakothek, is presented in 
the subdued light of the interior of a cathedral. In the nave, is set 
up the great canopied bed, at the foot of which is a [little, wooden 
cradle. Beside it the nurse is seated, holding the Child. From the 
foregound Joachim is entering; through the arches to the right several 
worshippers are to be seen. About the three large columns in the 
middle of the row which divides the nave from the aisle, a great ring of 
angels, holding hands as in a game, and looking, in their robes of all 
colours, like a huge wreath of flowers, are circling joyously, and 
from the middle of the circle, one large angel is swinging a censer 
toward the Babe. 

Of almost startling effectiveness is the sunset over a landscape of 
rare beauty in the "Recovering the Body of Quirinus," which is in 
the Germanic Museum, Nuremberg. Two women and a young man, all 
three strong, muscular figures, are trying with considerable effort 
to carry to a wagon which is close at hand, the body of the saint, which 
they have just taken out of the broad stream into which he was thrown 
to die for conscience's sake. The banks of the river are wooded 
and the brilliant, burning red of the setting sun lights up some of the 
trees of the wood, and streaks the water with burnished copper 
tones. 

The effect of the supernatural in " The Crucifixion," in the Ger- 
manic Museum — a picture which is considered by some critics Altdorf- 
er's masterpiece — is also achieved by the lighting and colouring. The 
scene presents, in the centre, the cross of Christ, with, to right and 
left, those of the two thieves. An executioner, who has already put 
an end to the sufferings of the two malefactors, is standing on the 
ladder he has set up against the central cross, watching the death of 
Christ. To the left of the cross the soldiers are quarrelling over 
Christ's mantle; to the right are the sorrowing women, a group 
presented with convincing realism and much dramatic power. The 
background is intensely blue and the same colour predominates in 
the robes worn by the women at the foot of the cross. Overhead is a 




Photograph by Franz Hanfstaengl 



ALBRECHT ALTDORFER 

Battle of Arbela 
alte pixakothek, munich 



ALBRECHT ALTDORFER 207 

wild sky, with moving, black clouds from which a rainbow of hope 
and promise has burst forth. The whole scene is dramatic and in- 
tense, but over the weirdness of its troubled atmosphere triumphs, 
in the final analysis, the exaltation of its colour and light. 

To its fighting and resultant colouring is due also the tremendous 
impressiveness of that unique battle scene, the "Battle of Arbela," 
which Altdorfer painted in 1529 for Duke Wilhelm IV of Bavaria, 
in the series of famous battles painted for him by various artists. This 
"Battle of Arbela" so captivated Napoleon that he carried it off 
to St. Cloud to hang in his bathroom, where he could contem- 
plate it frequently and at leisure. Since its return to Germany it 
hangs in Munich Pinakothek. The moment pictured is that of the 
victory of Alexander the Great over Darius the Persian; but the 
presentaton is that of a XVI century battle scene and is so crowded 
with the thousands of warriors who contend on foot and on horse- 
back, that it requires close examination to find Alexander in pursuit 
of the fleeing Darius. In the middle distance the tents of the armies 
are pitched near a town with many high towers; in the background is 
the sea, with rocky shores. The sky above is filled with tumultuous 
clouds; on high the pale moon of Persia is waning, while out of the sea 
is rising in full power and brilliance, the sun of Greece. As it shines 
on the moving clouds they are transfigured by its light and in turn 
reflect their glory on the hosts below, filling the whole picture with 
Griinewaldesque rainbow hues of red, green, yellow, blue and violet. 
Yet the clouds remain vaporous and the colours below are not solid 
but give the effect of such reflections as are cast by stained glass 
windows on the faces of those beneath them. To appreciate to 
the full the light and colour in Altdorfer's picture it is only 
necessary to look for a moment at another battle scene from the 
same series, which was painted for Duke Wilhelm by Altdorfer's 
pupil, Melchior Feselen, and hangs in the Pinakothek, near the 
"Battle of Arbela." Feselen has striven to imitate his master's 
effects, but without his gifts; his rainbow hues create no illusion; they 
are nothing more than solid, flat streaks of colour laid on the canvas. 

Altdorfer's interest in his other art of architecture is revealed 
by his fondness for introducing great halls or palaces into his pic- 
tures. In the "Susanna at the Bath," in Munich Pinakothek, the 



208 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART 

theme of the picture is almost lost sight of, so dwarfed is it by the 
enormous Renaissance building which takes up half the canvas. 
All the exquisite beauty of the picture is concentrated, however, 
in that garden to the left, in which Susanna's toilet is being made 
by her tiring-women. Beautiful trees form a cool background for 
her, and all about her bloom numberless poppies, buttercups, cow- 
slips, snapdragons, violets, forget-me-nots, blue-bells and, beside the 
steps to the castle terrace, stately hollyhocks, all done with the lov- 
ing care of a miniaturist and with a naturalness not to be surpassed 
even by painters who devote their art exclusively to the painting 
of flowers. 

Another imposing monument of architecture is the palace which 
is given with such careful detail in the picture of "Riches and Pov- 
erty," in Berlin Gallery, which was painted in 1531 as an illustration 
of the proverb, "The beggar sits on the courtier's train." Down 
the wide steps which form the approach to the palace, walks a man 
in gorgeous array, to welcome the two handsomely dressed guests 
who are advancing through the park. On the long trains of 
their velvet mantles sits a whole family of "hangers on." The 
scene is pictured cheerfully, in the full light of mid-day; it is cul- 
turally interesting, as well, as an illustration of the social life of the 
period. 

Altdorfer's fame rests not only on his paintings, however, but 
on his engravings, woodcuts and drawings as well. In his engrav- 
ings of classical and mythological scenes he seems to have given the 
preference to subjects that gave him an opportunity to portray 
the nude human form. His religious scenes deal mainly with the 
Passion of Christ, and it is in these that we learn to appreciate his 
dramatic gifts and his power of interpreting pathos and tragedy. 
The Crucifixion in this series is unique in conception and setting and 
powerful in its appeal. The very high cross on which the Christ 
is lifted up, is erected in a grove of trees, many of which are dead, 
their bare branches festooned with trailing moss. The body of the 
Christ is tortured, yet not beyond all beauty; around his head a 
radiance shines. The crosses of the thieves are absent; about the 
dying Lord are only his family and friends. Contrary to all 
precedent, Mary Magdalen, a great tragic figure, is pictured stand- 




O S k 



' 5 B 



►J £ 




ALBRECHT ALTDORFER 

The Crucifixion (Engraving on Copper) 



ALBRECHT ALTDORFER 209 

ing and leaning against the cross, her bearing eloquent of her 
weariness and despairing grief. The whole atmosphere, with 
the troubled sky, the bare trees, the sagging moss, speaks of 
heart-rending tragedy. The visualisation of the scene is that of 
the poet in his "Ballad of Trees and the Master": 

"When death and shame would woo him last, 
From under the trees they drew him last, 
Twas on a tree they slew him last, 
When out of the woods he came." 

Of his woodcuts the most important are in the large series repre- 
senting the Fall and Redemption of Man. The various scenes were 
brought within the comprehension of the artist's contemporaries 
by being presented in terms of the period in which they were living 
and working. The architecture, costumes and types were those 
they saw every day in the streets of Ratisbon. The greater emphasis 
laid on the structural in the modelling of the figures, and the presence 
of such types as the soldier in armour in the Cross Bearing, who 
might have stepped out of the frescoes in the Eremitani Chapel in 
Padua, suggest that Altdorfer was, at this time, feeling the influence 
of their great master, Andrea Mantegna. So carefully done is the 
mechanical work on these woodcuts, that it is generally believed 
that the artist not only made the drawings for them, but himself 
engraved them. 

Altdorfer's drawings vie in beauty with the loveliest of his 
paintings. Naturally, as one of the famous painters of the day and 
Diirer's friend, he was invited, in 1515, to join the noble com- 
pany of artists who were engaged in illustrating the Emperor Maxi- 
milian's Prayerbook. Eight drawings in the Besancon fragment 
are from his hand. But more beautiful are the single sheets in Ber- 
lin Print Room, the Albertina, Vienna, and other collections. He 
tinted the paper amber, green, brown, dull blue or grey, then, 
drawing with bold sweep and rapid curve he would, on one page, 
merely indicate his subjects, while on another he would give them 
in minutest detail and with wonderful delicacy. Of exquisite 
beauty is such a drawing as "Pyramus Dead," which is done in black 
and white on a dull blue ground. The scene is laid in a forest 



210 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART 

of larches, partly in light, partly in shadow. Touched by the slant- 
ing rays of sunlight are the stone arches of a ruin, all grown over 
with thick moss out of which small trees are springing. In the gloom 
of the foreground lies, on the earth, the beautiful young Pyramus, 
his handsome robes all blood-stained — alone and dead. In such a 
scene the artist's command of light is almost as telling as in his pic- 
tures. In the drawing of Gethsemane, the troubled atmosphere 
of suspense is created by a pale moon almost obscured by moving 
clouds, and the light cast out into the darkness under the trees, from 
the lanterns carried by the soldiers who come to take Christ pris- 
oner. In the fitful, wavering light, the very tree branches seem to 
shiver and the whole indecision and soul anguish of the scene are 
reflected with the most delicate sensitiveness. 

As Cranach has been called the Hans Sachs of German painting 
Altdorfer might well be named its Hans Christian Andersen. He 
tells his stories in colour with just such spontaneous enthusiasm, such 
an air of probability, such fancifulness and fertility of invention, such 
touches of whimsicality. But while the atmosphere of his pictures is 
usually that of a world in which the fairies might dwell, it is some- 
times — as in the Passion scenes — elevated by the light to lay bare 
before us the world-tragedy, to make real and vivid the suffering, 
to reveal the supernatural character of the supreme sacrifice, and, 
above all, to give a glimpse of the glory and the promise at the heart 
of it. 



CHAPTER XXVIII 

RATISBON 

THE PUPHS OF ALTDORFER 

Michael Ostcndorfer — Wolf Huber — Melchior Feselen 

A PUPIL of Albrecht Altdorfer, Michael Ostendorfer, became 
a blaster of the Guild in Ratisbon in 1519, and died there 
in 1559. He copied his master's lighting and colouring as 
nearly as he could, without putting into his pictures any of the poetry of 
which they should have been the vehicle. His chief work was the altar 
painted between 1553 and 1555 for the Parish Church in Ratisbon, 
and now in the Historical Society's Gallery. The central picture 
shows the Sending Forth of the Apostles; the wings contain six pictures 
from the Life of Christ and six setting forth the significance of Baptism. 
The composition is confused, the characterisations without subtlety, 
the colouring heavy, the light effects feeble imitations of Altdorfer. 
In the same Gallery are his two interesting portraits of Duke Albrecht 
V of Bavaria and of "A Young Man," the latter bearing the inscrip- 
tion, "Who knows what will happen!" 

A pupil whose style resembled his master's closely was Wolf 
Huber, to whom Dr. Schmidt attributes the "Beheading of John the 
Baptist," in theLanna Collection, Prague, which several other authori- 
ties believe to be an original Altdorfer. Huber's fame rests chiefly 
on his woodcuts, which he engraved with his own hand. 

A third pupil, Melchior Feselen, who died in 1538 at Ingolstadt, 
was one of the painters engaged by Duke Wilhelm IV of Bavaria to 
paint battle scenes for his collection. The "Siege of Rome by Por- 
senna," painted in 1529, and the "Siege of Alesias by Caesar," painted 
in 1533, both of which are in Munich Pinakothek, show very careful 
work, but the figures are wooden and the whole effect dry and life- 
less. In his effects of light he tries to imitate Altdorfer's "Battle 
of Arbela," but only succeeds in painting across the pictures strips 
of various colours, which create no illusion of vapours, mists or 
rainbows, but remain, even to the most responsive imagination, 

merely streaks of paint. 

211 



CHAPTER XXIX 

NUREMBERG 

THE XIV CENTURY 

THE art of Nuremberg is in character almost antithetically 
opposed to the art of Cologne, while the art of Swabia might 
be said to form a sort of transition from the one to the other. 
For whereas the art of Cologne is dreamy, contemplative, mystic, the 
art of Nuremberg is vigorous, energetic, dramatic. The work of the 
Nuremberg artists is inevitably, therefore, not so externally beautiful 
and harmonious as the work of the Cologne masters, but it is more 
virile and powerful. The art of Cologne, with all its beauty, was so 
frail and lacking in vitality, that when the new ideals and technique 
of the art of the Netherlands impressed themselves upon Germany, 
Cologne could not maintain its individuality, or even, for long, its 
existence. Nuremberg, on the other hand, possessed so much inner 
life and vital power that its painters simply learned from the Nether- 
lands how to do things better than had been possible with their limited 
technical resources; how to give their figures more body, to set them 
in space, to make them more lifelike and expressive. The new art did 
not absorb them but only provided them with fuller equipment; in- 
stead of losing their individuality they were enabled to give it fuller 
expression. 

As early as the XIV century the rich and important town of 
Nuremberg had developed within its borders and attracted from 
other and smaller towns many artists whose names, after the lapse of 
centuries, have come down to us as mere names, whose works we see 
in the churches and museums without being able to attribute them to 
any one of the painters on the long list. 

The earliest painter mentioned is Nicholas of Bohemia, who 
worked in Nuremberg in 1310. The praise of a Master Arnold was 
sung by the Minnesinger Egon of Wurzburg in his "Castle of Minne" 
and again by the Mastersinger, Hans Rosenblut, as an artist who 

212 



THE XIV CENTURY 213 

could "paint or carve anything that can fly or swim." Of the life 
and work of one Master Otto, the sole record is that he was ex- 
pelled from Nuremberg for bad behaviour. A Master Berthold is 
mentioned in 1363, 1378 and 1396. During the latter half of the 
century several artists were engaged in the decoration of the new City 
Hall, the building of which was finished in 1340. Sigmund Meisterlin 
in his " Chronicles of the German Cities" records that " it was beauti- 
fied with scenes from Valerius Maximus, Plutarch and Aggellio, illus- 
trative of the wisdom and justice of great councillors and judges, 
which should serve as an example to all such." We find a record of 
the cleaning of these pictures in 1378, and again in 1423, when a 
Master Berthold was commissioned to restore and to add to them, 
and also to paint some scenes on the outside of the building. 

The oldest altar-piece in Nuremberg is in St. Jacob's Church, 
but has been painted over so often that nothing of the original remains 
except the composition. It represents the Annunciation, Coronation 
of the Virgin, Resurrection, Women at the Tomb, twelve Apostles 
and two Prophets. 

From about the middle of the century dates the St. Martha Altar, 
which was taken to the Germanic Museum from one of the Nuremberg 
churches. The central section of the altar has a most unusual 
subject, the Death of St. Martha, pictured as it is described by 
Jacobus a Voragine. The legend relates that "in the night before 
the death of the saint a very high wind arose and blew out all the 
candles, whereupon the evil spirits surrounded and so tormented her 
that in great anguish of spirit she called upon God for help. Then 
came to her aid her sister Mary bearing a torch with which she 
relighted the candles. And as they greeted each other, Lo! Christ 
himself appeared and assured the dying saint that, as she had received 
him so hospitably on earth, even so would he receive her in Paradise." 
The picture shows us the saint in bed. At the left, wearing a crown 
and bearing a box of ointment, Mary is entering, bringing a candle 
with which she will drive off the evil spirit. From the other side the 
Redeemer is approaching the bed, uttering the reassuring words. 
The wings of the altar represent the Raising of Lazarus and Mary 
Washing the Feet of Christ. The outside is covered with a decora- 
tive design of vines and birds. The type presented has a high fore- 



214 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART 

head, broad nose, large eyes and short lower face. The colours are 
strong and dark. 

In the church of the neighbouring Cistercian cloister of Heilsbronn 
are several XIV century altars, most of them, unfortunately, restored 
to such a degree that nothing is to be gained from the consideration 
of them. Interesting and impressive is, however, the Christ as Man 
of Sorrows, presented with the donor, a young cleric who holds a 
scroll on which is the prayer "Miserere mei deus." Above the kneeling 
figure, on the decorated gold background, is a small tablet bearing his 
name "Apt Friedrich von Herzlach." The records of the monastery 
show that the term during which he was its abbot extended from 1346 
to 1361, during which period, therefore, this picture must have been 
painted. It presents the Man of Sorrows, wearing a mantle which 
covers almost his whole body, standing in front of the cross on which 
are the instruments of his Passion. The head and face show a singular 
combination of traditional and German features. His body is long 
and slender out of all proportion; manifestly the artist was helpless 
in face of the problem of giving its anatomical structure. But in spite 
of the archaic form and technical weaknesses, the picture makes a pow- 
erful sentimental appeal. The pose of the figure is eloquent of the 
physical exhaustion of the sufferer; the eyes look at us with contem- 
plative yet tender gaze; and the whole bearing is so expressive of 
humility blended with noble dignity and reserve power, that it con- 
veys the artist's ideal of the Christ who was "lifted up," a sinless, 
vicarious sacrifice. 

To the period of transition from the XIV to the XV century be- 
long several Epitaphs, or memorial pictures, in various Nuremberg 
churches. Among them is, in the Lorenzkirche, the Epitaph of Paul 
Stromer, who, with his wife, died of the plague in 1406. It presents 
Christ enthroned upon the clouds surrounded by angels who bear the 
instruments of his Passion, while the Virgin and St. John kneel before 
him, offering intercession for the Stromer family. The forms are 
very slender, the drawing hard, the colours strong. An Epitaph in 
the Germanic Museum which was painted in memory of Clara Holz- 
schuher, who, according to the inscription, died in 1426, is a very 
crude and wooden representation of the Madonna with St. Catherine 
and St. Bernhardin of Siena. 



CHAPTER XXX 

NUREMBERG 

MASTER BERTHOLD 

IN the first half of the XV century worked an artist who occupied 
in Nuremberg Art the place filled in Cologne by the Master of the 
St. Clara Altar and in Hamburg by Master Bertram — Master 
Berthold Landauer. Concerning the date of the beginning of his 
artistic activity in Nuremberg some doubt remains, since, as we have 
already seen, a Master Berthold is mentioned in the chronicles of 
Nuremberg as early as 1363. Again the name appears in 1406 
when a Master Berthold painted coats-of-arms in the City Hall; 
and again in 1413, 1423, and in the years from 1427 to 1430. In 
all probability there were two masters of the same name, doubtless 
father and son, each of whom stood in high repute as an artist. 
That Berthold the Younger was the foremost artist in the city is 
attested to by the record that, in 1423, the City Hall was "painted 
back and front" by Master Berthold, his sons and apprentices. 

Master Berthold probably learned the rudiments of his art from 
his father, and later came under the influence of the Bohemian 
Master of Wittingau. The close relationship between Master 
Berthold and the Master of Wittingau is manifest at first glance, if 
we place side by side the Bohemian painter's Hohenfurt Madonna and 
the Nuremberg artist's Madonna from the Deichsler Altar or the 
one known as the "Imhof Madonna." The garments, the fringed veil, 
the arrangement of the hair of the Hohenfurt Madonna might have 
been the work of the painter of the Madonna of the Deichsler Altar, so 
similar are they, while the angels in the background closely resemble 
those in the Imhof Madonna picture. Drawing and colouring are 
remarkably alike in the two masters and the composition in these two 
Madonna pictures of Master Berthold is almost identical with that 
of the Hohenfurt Madonna. 

A second artist, whose work was doubtless known to the young 
Master Berthold and whose types are akin to those of the Master 

215 



216 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART 

of Wittingau, has been named the Master of the Przibram 
Family, from his picture of a very intimate scene in the life of the 
Holy Family, which is in the collection of Fraulein Gabriele Przibram, 
in Vienna. The scene is really quite secular, and might have been 
taken from everyday human life in some German family of the 
artist's acquaintance. Mary and Elisabeth are sitting together on a 
long bench, busy with familiar, domestic occupations. Elisabeth is 
winding yarn on a reel. The crowned Virgin, distaff in hand, has 
interrupted her work a moment to read the Bible. On the floor, at 
their feet, the children John and Jesus, in their play, have got into a 
little quarrel over a pan and spoon. Jesus insists on taking it away 
from John, who turns to his mother to complain, "See mother, what 
Jesus is doing to me !" The painter's technique is quite crude; though 
he has attempted the nude in the bodies of the children, they are quite 
flat and without modelling; and his handling of the perspective is so 
helpless that the cushions on which the children are sitting are 
placed up in the air, resting on nothing. But the types are attractive 
and the humorous little story does not fail to interest by its simplicity 
and humanness. 

Very close to genre are two pictures by this master in the Ger- 
manic Museum, Nuremberg, which represent the Massacre of the 
Innocents and the Burial of the Virgin Mary. The scene in which 
vengeance overtakes the blasphemers at the burial procession of the 
Virgin is, indeed, almost burlesque. 

Some historians believe that Master Berthold's development was 
also affected in some degree by Italian influence, and advance the 
theory that he had visited Italy and had seen the works of Giotto and 
the Siennese masters before he painted the Imhof Madonna. The 
evidences of Italian influence are, however, limited to this one 
picture, and are so very slight, that it seems more probable that any 
acquaintance he may have had with the Italian types and manner was 
gained from the Master of Wittingau, through the works of those 
Italian artists who had come to Prague on the invitation of Emperor 
Karl IV. 

The earliest of the works attributed to Berthold is the Deichsler 
Altar, in Berlin Gallery, which was originally presented to the old 
Dominican Church in Nuremberg by Berthold Deichsler, who died 



MASTER BERTHOLD 217 

in 141S or 1419. On a board in the carved* middle section of the altar 
is the donor's name, while his own and his wife's coats-of-arms are 
introduced in the pictures on the wings, which present the standing 
figures of the Virgin and Child, St. Peter Martyr, St. John the Baptist 
and St. Elizabeth. The present background of dark blue dotted with 
stars was painted in by a later artist. The Virgin, who is slight and 
girlish, with sloping shoulders, is very lovely in her full robes of 
brownish-red and green, with a large crown on her wavy, blond hair. 
In the curve of her left arm she holds the slender, curly-haired Babe; 
in her right hand is an apple. She is not regarding either the Child or 
us; her gaze is withdrawn from the tilings of this world; she is sunk in 
contemplation. Yet the figure is by no means stamped with the peace 
of mystical absorption which pervades the Cologne pictures of this 
period. The attitude of the Virgin is not one of utter relaxation, as is 
that of the Madonna with the Violet; she holds the apple as if pre- 
pared to move it at any moment to provide distraction for the Child, 
who is so full of life that he must claim a great deal of attention. In- 
stead of the appearance of perpetual, calm dreaming which Stephan 
Lochner's Madonnas present, Berthold's Virgin looks as if she had lost 
herself in thought but for a few minutes and might at any instant come 
back to the everyday cares of her motherhood. The saints possess 
much charm, and their sincerity and devotion are so evident that 
even the excessive sentimentality of St. John hardly offends us. 

The most important work of Master Berthold and the one 
which was the starting point for all other attributions, is the Imhof 
Altar in the Imhof Chapel, over the south door in the Lorenzkirche 
in Nuremberg.* The central picture represents the Coronation of 
the Virgin; on the wings, which have been sawed off and hang on 
the opposite wall of the gallery, are the apostles Philip, Bartholomew, 
James the Greater, James the Less, Andrew and Matthew. The 
picture from the back of the shrine, representing Christ as Man of 
Sorrows standing in the tomb, supported by the Virgin and St. 
John, has been taken to the Germanic Museum. 

The "Coronation of the Virgin" presents Christ and the Virgin 
seated on a sort of divan too simple in form to be called a throne, 

*See Thode: Die Malerschule von NUrnberg im XIV und XV Jahrhundert. (Heinrich 
Keller, Frankfurt, a/M, 1891.) 



218 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART 

but covered with, rich brocade. Christ, in cherry-red robe and mantle, 
wearing a crown and bearing the sceptre, is placing a crown like his 
own on the head of the Virgin, who, robed in blue, her fringed veil 
falling about her shoulders and almost covering her hair, receives 
it with hands folded in prayer, with humility and consecration. 
On the right is St. Thaddeus bearing his cross, on the left St. Simon. 
At the feet of the saints kneel the donors of the altar, a man and 
three women — Conrad Imhof and his family. It is recorded 
that Conrad Imhof was twice married* from this picture it would 
appear that he had had three wives. That one of the women on 
the right wing was his first wife, Elizabeth Schatz, is manifest from 
the introduction of the coat-of-arms of her family. 

The figures are slight, the shoulders narrow and sloping, the 
upper part of the bodies of the two who are seated, much too long 
in proportion to the lower part. Though the bodies are still quite flat, 
the artist has made an effort to model them and has succeeded in 
sharply accentuating the bony structure of the limbs of the seated 
figures, even under the garments. The hands are unusually small, 
with tapering fingers. The faces are rather longer and more pointedly 
oval than is the ideal of the masters of the same period in Cologne, 
the forehead is lower, the mouth larger, the chin more strong and de- 
cided. Characteristic of Master Berthold is the way the men 
wear their heavy, wavy hair brushed straight back from the 
forehead, so that it almost covers the ears and hangs to the nape 
of the neck. The garments are draped in regular, parallel folds, 
which break at the edges in set ripples. The colouring is deeper and 
stronger than that in pictures of the School of Cologne. Altogether 
the impression gained is of rare beauty of type and colouring, with 
greater vitality and more underlying energy than we find in the art 
of Cologne. The atmosphere is charged with solemn exaltation; in- 
ner intensity is veiled only lightly by the apparent tranquility. 

A third altar by Master Berthold, the so-called Bamberg Altar, in 
the National Museum, Munich, shows the great pathfinder as a dra- 
matist. It represents, in the shrine, the "Crucifixion"; on the wings, 
the "Crowning with Thorns," "Trial before Pilate," "Cross Bearing," 
and "Descent from the Cross." The predellais a later addition and 
not the work of Master Berthold. The "Crucifixion" is remarkable, at 




a e a 



& x o o 

~ c e « 

< o B 




j i 

O pa 
X 

a a 

* o 

BS £ 
W- .. 

H z 

cc o 

a § 



MASTER BERTHOLD 219 

first glance, for its well-balanced composition. In the middle, 
Christ, long and thin in body, and wearing still his crown of 
thorns, hangs upon the cross. His suffering is expressed rather in 
the bleeding feet and strained sinews of the arms than in his beauti- 
ful, calm face. At the foot kneels Mary Magdalen with flowing hair; 
to the left, the Virgin sinks fainting, supported by John and one of 
the sorrowing women; back of the women, a group of three men 
talk together as they watch the Christ; the Centurion, standing be- 
tween them and the cross, clasps his hands in worship; beside him 
stands, gaping, a stupid-looking boy who holds the staff on which is 
the vinegar-sponge. To the right of the cross is a group of Roman 
soldiers; one is pointing to the Christ, and all, apparently, are en- 
gaged in conversation about him. In the right-hand corner men are 
casting lots for his mantle. In the upper sky, to the left and right 
of the arms of the cross, are introduced, according to a practice 
quite common in mediaeval art, the sun and moon with human 
faces. 

In several particulars the Bamberg altar marks a decided de- 
velopment in the master's art. He has endeavoured to model the 
nude form of Christ, has brought out painstakingly, so far as he was 
able, the bones and muscles. In the kneeling figure of Mary Mag- 
dalen, the attempt to realise the body under the flowing robes is 
bold though not very successful. The thick-set, strongly built 
man to the right who stands with his back to the spectator is 
remarkably well detached from the background and is as natural as 
life in appearance and pose. The refined face of the Centurion is that 
of a Nuremberg patrician; the stupid-looking boy beside him is very 
lifelike in face, figure, dress and expression. The dice-throwers 
are, in appearance and manners, ruffians of the Nuremberg streets. 
The costumes, except those worn by the sacred personages, are of 
the varied fashions peculiar to the different classes of society in 
Nuremberg at that period. The scene is full of life, yet remarkably 
controlled in movement and restrained in expression. 

One of the best-known and most charming of Master Berthold's 
works is the "Imhof Madonna," in the Lorenzkirche in Nuremberg. 
Even at a casual glance, one cannot fail to be struck by the Italian 
note in the picture. The Madonna is given in half length, her 



220 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART 

mantle and halo borne by four angels with spread wings. She 
holds the Child in her arms, as if presenting him to the world's 
gaze. The composition, the types of Mother and Child and the 
treatment of the draperies all recall the Italian masters. The Virgin's 
eyes are dark and slightly almond-shaped, the mouth small, the chin 
short, the brow not so high and face not so long as in the Madonna of 
the Imhof Altar. The headdress of heavy stuff is in one piece with the 
mantle, and hangs over her forehead so as to completely cover her 
hair. At the bottom of the picture kneel, at the left, the donor with 
eight sons, at the right, his wife with four daughters. The coat-of- 
arms is that of the Imhof family. 

Closely related to the "Imhof Madonna" are three pictures in 
Munich National Museum; the Epitaph of the nun Gerhaus Ferin, 
a "Virgin and Child," with a female donor presented by St. John the 
Evangelist, and the "Madonna in the Wheat-ear Garments." This 
last-named is a very attractive picture with a subject unique. It 
presents the Virgin kneeling in a Gothic hall, wearing a blue mantle 
patterned in golden ears of wheat. To the left, in a doorway quite 
near her, stands a white-robed angel, and, to the right, little angels 
are peeping in through a second door. It is a charming picture 
from the girlhood of the Virgin, from that time when, as the legend 
runs, she and her girl friends embroidered beautiful silken robes, 
which then, when lots were cast, fell to her. She would pray, con- 
tinues the legend, all day long in the Temple and the Archangel 
Gabriel would bring her the bread of heaven to eat. 

An altar-piece which Thode considers one of the last works 
of Master Berthold is the Deocarus Altar, in the Lorenzkirche, 
Nuremberg, and is sacred to the memory of that Deocarus who was 
the Father-Confessor of Charlemagne and whose bones were pre- 
sented to the new Lorenzkirche by Emperor Louis the Bavarian, in 
1317. About a century later, Andreas Volkamer made provision 
for a suitable shrine for the reliquaries and for an altar with wood 
carvings and paintings. The central section of the altar contains, 
in wood carving, in the upper row, Christ and six of the disciples; 
in the lower, St. Deocarus and the other six. The paintings on 
the wings represent, on the right, the Last Supper and the Resur- 
rection; on the left, scenes from the Legends of St. Deocarus. On 




Photograph by Ferd. Schmidt, Nuremberg 

MASTER BERTHOLD 

Imhof Madonna 

lorexzkirche, nueemberg 




Photograph by Fran: Hanfstat mjl 

Franconian Master about 1430, Possibly MASTER BERTHOLD 
Virgin in "Wheat-ear" Garments 
bavarian national museum, munich 



MASTER BERTHOLD 221 

the predella are represented the reclining form of the saint and 
four scenes from his life: Deocarus praying in front of a forest chapel, 
the symbol of the founding of his abbey; Deocarus restoring sight to 
a blind man; the confessional of Charlemagne; the body of Deocarus 
being borne to Nuremberg and given over to four councillors by 
Emperor Louis. The compositions are in small proportions, but 
many of them are quite masterly. This altar reveals also the 
master's gifts as a wood-carver, for the figures in the middle sec- 
tion are from his hand and resemble the paintings on the wings 
as closely as it is possible for carved figures to resemble painted ones. 
There are the same thick-set men, with rounded foreheads, fine, 
slightly arched noses, full eyes, wavy hair brushed straight back 
from the forehead, hands with their knuckles accentuated; the same 
characteristic draping of the garments; the same poses and expres- 
sions of countenance. 

The first great master of Nuremberg does not possess the quiet, 
dreamy charm of the Cologne master of the "Madonna with the Bean 
Blossom" or of Stephan Lochner. With all their loveliness, his 
people are not the type that would be found so wholly sunk in 
contemplation of Divine Love and the Heavenly Country that 
this world would never exist for them. Nor are they the type of 
those in Master Bertram's charming stories, who move to the 
rhythm of swinging censers or the melody of stringed instruments. 
Even though they are presented in repose, their lack of relaxation, 
their intensity of gaze, speak plainly of natures potentially active 
and aggressive. Master Berthold could never have revealed to us, 
as did Stephan Lochner, the bliss of souls new born into heaven; but 
he could portray the dramatic scene of the Crucifixion. Thus in the 
work of her first painter we begin to realise that the most distinc- 
tive characteristic of the art of Nuremberg is its dramatic quality. 



CHAPTER XXXI 

NUREMBERG 

MASTER PFENNING 

ONE of the original, creative geniuses in German art, Master 
Pfenning, was a pupil of Bertkold in Nuremberg. As Ber- 
thold might fitly be called the Giotto of Nuremberg art, to 
Pfenning might be assigned a place corresponding to Masaccio's 
in Italian art. While Master Berthold broke away in a measure 
from the old forms and traditions of churchly art, while he turned 
to life for many of his types, as the fat man, the Centurion, the 
Nuremberg lad with the staff and vinegar-sponge, in the Bamberg 
Altar, he nevertheless clung closely in other respects to conventional 
types and attitudes. Christ, the Virgin and the saints are all 
presented in the traditional manner. Their expressions and poses are 
hieratic, their uniform attitude is one of abstraction, of withdrawal 
from the world. These are divine beings and saints, and not mere 
men and women who can understand and mingle with living, human 
people. But Berthold's great successor departs from the accepted 
churchly pattern; in his treatment of the oft-represented themes he 
is under no restraint from the side of the customary or traditional. 
Master Pfenning observes life; goes direct to nature and endeavours 
to reproduce men and women as he sees them, with their varying 
and pronounced individualities. He even conceives the idea of set- 
ting them in natural environments, and ventures to introduce into 
his pictures such non-traditional features as domestic animals and 
still-life accessories. 

Naturally he does not achieve with perfect success this break 
with the typical and adoption of the natural and individual as a 
standard. The doing of it is a conflict, a struggle which is evident to 
us who look on, and which, in fact, draws us to his pictures with 
such a full realisation of what is so earnestly attempted and so 
far from accomplished, that we become sharers in the endeavour and 

222 



MASTER PFENNING 223 

an interest is awakened in us which is almost creative in its character, 
as if we ourselves were painting the picture and striving to solve 
the new problems. 

Master Pfenning's earliest work was probably the Tucher Altar, 
in the Frauenkirche in Nuremberg, which was painted between 1440 
and 1450. It is not a work which has in it much of superficial beauty, 
for even the charm of the works of the earlier masters is lacking; but 
it is a work thoroughly Germanic in character and spirit, conscien- 
tiously true to nature as the artist sees it and is able to reproduce 
it, and the direct antecedent of the long line of pictures which were 
to follow in the school of Nuremberg. 

The background is gold, richly adorned with ceaselessly moving, 
curling acanthus leaves; the encasements are Gothic arches, finely 
carved and profusely ornamented. The central picture represents 
the Crucified One between the Virgin and St. John. The Christ, un- 
lovely in face and form, hangs upon the cross, still wearing the crown 
of thorns and with blood streaming from every wound. The Virgin, 
belonging to no type hitherto met with in art, though wearing the 
traditional white headdress, holds up hands as if in protest; St. John, 
thick-set and strong-looking, with square jaw and strenuous expres- 
sion, is moving his hands as if about to clasp them in prayer. At the 
foot of the cross, among the plants and flowers, is a death's head. 

On the left wing of the altar is the Annunciation. The Virgin, 
an intense-looking woman, but wholly a woman and not a trance- 
bound mystic or a Queen of Heaven, is interrupted in her reading in a 
curtained room, by an angel with full, white robes and great, spread 
wings who kneels before her, the fingers of his right hand raised in 
blessing, his lips parted in speech. In his left hand he bears a written 
message with great dangling seals, a naive symbol of his errand to 
earth. 

The right wing shows the Resurrection. The Christ, unbeautif ul, 
a thick-set figure, but with kindly eyes, is arising from the tomb. 
The guard sitting with his back to us is sound asleep with his head 
resting on his arms; the one wearing the oriental turban and facing 
us sleeps in a most amusingly natural fashion, his head on his hand, 
elbow propped on knee. The third has just awakened and with 
his hand shades his eyes from the dazzling brightness. His whole 



224 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART 

body expresses the startled amazement with which he shrinks from 
the sudden apparition. 

On each of the outer ends of the altars are two saints; on the right 
St. Augustine and St. Monica, with an angel hovering between and 
above them in curious foreshortening; on the left, St. Paul and St. 
Anthony. On the outer sides of the wings are St. Vitus, St. Adjutor 
and St. Augustine, the latter pictured just at the moment when, 
hard at work in his study, he looks up to catch, in the sky above, the 
heavenly vision of the Madonna and Child. Beside him are the 
tools of his occupation — books, letters, a light, a pair of spectacles and 
an hour-glass. 

The external characteristics of this Tucher Altar which most im- 
press us as original features and innovations in Nuremberg art are the 
massive strength of the figures, the emphasis laid upon the bony 
structure of nose, cheek-bones, knuckles and knees, the amplitude of 
the garments with their heavy folds, the deep colours which help to 
give the figures body and detachment, the attempts at foreshorten- 
ing and perspective, as in the guards at the tomb and the angel between 
Saints Augustine and Monica, and the free introduction of worldly 
details as in the still-life accessories in "The Vision of St. Augustine." 

Whether, or not, as Edward von Engerth believes, Master 
Pfenning lived for a time in Austria, where he was occasionally 
confused with that Lorenz Pfenning who was architect of St. Stephen's 
Church in Vienna in 1454, cannot be established. In Vienna Gallery 
is found, however, one of his most important works, "The Crucifixion," 
dated 1449.* The composition of the picture is crowded with figures 
and details of every sort. In the foreground, in the middle of the 
picture, hangs the Christ on the Cross, a figure strangely weak and 
lacking in modelling. To right and left are the thieves, tied to their 
crosses; one of them looks imploringly at the Redeemer, the other 
turns his head away, grinning malevolently. To the left, the 
Virgin sinks fainting into the arms of one of the other women; John 
and a woman mourner turn their heads distractedly toward the cross, 
in an agony of grief and prayer. On the ground, but a short distance 

*Some authorities do not accept Thode's attribution of the Vienna "Crucifixion" to the Master 
of the Tucher Altar. In spite of the signature, they attribute it to one Conrad Laib, on the 
ground of its resemblance to an altar-piece painted by him in the Cathedral in Gratz. 



MASTER PFENNING 225 

from this group, a very small boy, all unconscious of the tragedy 
which is being enacted, is playing with a dog; from the right comes 
another dog, curious about the death's head with the staring eyes which 
is lying near the foot of the cross. A crowd throngs about the three 
crosses. Beside that of the good thief stands a man in oriental robes, 
holding by the hand a chubby little boy, pointing upward to the thief 
and talking with another man who is laughing broadly. Between 
them and the central cross is a very fat, magisterial-looking personage 
in a gorgeous mantle, riding a sad-looking mule. A warrior in the full 
armour of a mediaeval knight, his lowered visor permitting only his eyes 
to be seen, leans back, a fine statuesque figure, to answer a questioning 
friend, who has laid his hand on his shoulder to attract attention. 
Behind him a man is shouting, with wide-open mouth. To the right of 
the cross a man with sweeping beard is pointing toward the Crucified 
One and engaging his neighbour in serious discussion about him. Still 
farther to the right, rather behind the cross of the unrepentant thief, 
stands a Pharisee, his head resting on his hand, in an attitude of con- 
templation. Across the right front of the scene rides a beautiful youth 
in armour, with princely bearing, mounted on a white horse with a 
heavy body and a very small head. Immediately to the left of the 
cross and the kneeling Magdalen is the Centurion on horseback, his 
back to us, his right hand upraised to the Christ. His horse is capari- 
soned, and around the back of its trappings runs what looks, at first, 
like a merely decorative design in the border, but on closer examination 
proves to be the master's signature, motto, and the date of the picture. 
"D. Pfenning, 1449, As I can." the same motto as Jan van Eyck's — 
"This work is done just as well as I can do it." 




And truly it is a marvellously interesting work! The actors are 
individualised, the detachment of the figures from the background 



226 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART 

is real, the perspective astonishingly successful, the colouring rich. 
And such a variety of people and states of mind! Practically 
every conceivable mental attitude toward the Christ and the great 
drama of Calvary is recorded in this picture! 

A third work attributed to Master Pfenning is in the old 
Cistercian Church in Heilsbronn, and represents the Queen of 
Heaven holding on her left arm the Christ Child, and in her 
right hand a sceptre. Two angels are placing the heavy crown 
on her head; under her full, protective mantle are assembled the 
monks of the cloister and their abbot Ulrich, who evidently gave 
the commission for the painting of this picture during his term 
of office, which ran from 1435 to 1463. The Virgin is a tall figure, 
narrow-shouldered but stately in her voluminous robes; the face is 
strongly modelled and reveals the serenity and reserve strength 
which should appertain to a Madonna of Succour. The Child lean- 
ing against his mother's breast, looks straight out at us dreamily, 
forgetting the fluttering bird he holds on a string. 

In Master Pfenning's last period an interesting, though un- 
beautiful development takes place in his art. That faithfulness 
to nature, that quest for reality by which his best works are marked, 
develops beyond the limitations of art into a rendering of actual 
detail which is painful, even grotesque and horrible. Thus in 
an altar-piece in the Lorenzkirche which represents the Man of 
Sorrows, with Emperor Henry II and Empress Kunigunde, St. 
Lawrence and a donor, the Christ is pictured as a veritable giant, 
with over-emphasised muscular development and almost brutal 
strength. Similar in type is the Christ of a small altar-piece in 
St. John's Church representing, on the inside, the Crucifixion, 
Crowning with Thorns, and Scourging; on the outside, six other 
scenes from the Passion. The insistent features are the muscular 
contortion which reveals the agony of Christ, and the inhumanly 
villainous features of his tormentors. The only relieving feature 
in the revolting realism of these works is a certain warmth and 
glow of colour. 

Involuntarily there arises in our minds, in face of these pictures, 
the question: How were these subjects treated at this period by 
contemporary artists in the other countries which could boast of 




Photograph hyF. Bruckmann A-G, Munich 

MASTER PFENNING 

The Crucifixion 

imperial gallery. vienna 




Photoyraph by C. Dick 



MASTER PFENNING 

Madonna op Succor 
church, heilsbronn 



MASTER PFENNING 227 

any development of art, Italy and the Netherlands? In Italy, as 
we have seen, the subject of the Passion of Christ was presented 
rarely, as it did not really lend itself to representation according 
to the classical and Italian canons of art. Pfenning's Italian con- 
temporary, Fra Angelico, did, however, paint the Crucifixion several 
times, in a manner sentimental, undramatic, unimpassioned, so that 
in itself, it fails to move us deeply, but stirs our sympathy rather 
through the appeal made by the tears of the gentle, mourning women 
and the grieving disciples. In the Netherlands it was a frequent 
theme. By such a master as Roger van der Weyden we find it 
treated dramatically but with restraint, and in a spirit of detach- 
ment on the part of the artist, who views and presents the scene 
from the standpoint of an outsider. The German artist, on the 
other hand, is a sufferer in the tragedy. He is passionately par- 
tisan, and is, moreover, intent upon sharing with others all his in- 
tensity of feeling, his grief, despair and longing. In his effort to 
do this he passes beyond the possibilities of expression through 
his medium; in the fullest realisation of his ideal, his art ceases 
to be artistic; he is an illustration of Thoreau's saying, "Too 
great interest in a work vitiates it." 



CHAPTER XXXII 

NUREMBERG 

HANS PLEYDENWURFF 

THE art of the Netherlands, which, in the second half of the XV 
century, had such a benumbing effect on the art of Cologne 
proved to be, on the one hand, but a beneficial straight- jacket, 
on the other, an inspiration to the art of Nuremberg. On the side of 
sentiment, the cooler, calmer temperament and formal self-control 
of the Flemish artists, who always maintained a certain measure of 
intellectual detachment from their pictures, was what the Nuremberg 
painters needed to restrain them from the exaggerations and perver- 
sions into which they were led by their intense emotional natures and 
their passionate interest in the subjects they presented. The perfect, 
almost geometrical balance in the composition of the pictures by the 
artists of the Netherlands also worked with controlling power upon the 
Nuremberg artists, leading them away from their unregulated disposal 
of actors and capricious display of moods into a greater degree of order 
and restraint. On the technical side, too, the art of the Netherlands 
was an inspiration to the Nuremberg artists, casting light on much that 
had hitherto been dark and making attainable much that had hitherto 
been impossible. Painting in oils, they were enabled to present their 
figures in rounded form, completely detached from the background, 
and yet to use lighter and more brilliant colours than Master Pfen- 
ning, for instance, could have used to get his effects. The figures 
became less thick-set and more slender, the faces more oval, the 
materials more gorgeous and stiffer and therefore more angular in 
their folds, the gold background gave place to landscapes. In short, 
instead of losing their individuality under the dominant influence of 
the art of the Netherlands, the Nuremberg artists appropriated and 
adapted all the points they could gain from it and went on their own 
way rejoicing in increased facilities and enlarged possibilities. 

The master of the second half of the XV century in whose school 
the other artists learned their art was Hans Pleydenwurff. First 

228 



HANS PLEYDENWURFF 229 

mentioned in the chronicles in 1451, his name appears very frequently 
from that date until 1472, in which year he died, leaving a widow, 
who, in the next year, married Michael Wolgemut. 

One of the most important of his works remaining to us is a 
large Crucifixion, signed indistinctly on the turban of the young man 
to the right, J. P. — Johannes Pleydenwurff — which was painted for the 
Lorenzkirche, Nuremberg, was taken from there to the Burg, and from 
there to Bamberg, whence it came, in 1872, to Munich Pinakothek. 
The picture is interesting not only in itself, but as a connecting link 
between the old style and the new. The foreground is filled with 
figures grouped about the cross upon which hangs the shrinking body 
of the suffering Christ. Mary Magdalen clings to the foot of the 
cross; to the left is the group of mourners, and behind them a grey- 
bearded man with clasped hands, with whom a younger man is arguing 
with much gesticulation, and at whom a simple-looking man stands 
staring, his back to the cross. To the right are soldiers and common 
people, among them a man on a white horse, who is given in profile, 
the elderly Centurion on a fine prancing steed, and an indifferent and 
smiling youth in full armour. Behind the cross stretches a wide 
landscape of hills and trees in which is set the city of Jerusalem; in the 
middle distance people are seen walking and riding. 

The whole picture speaks of the influence of such a Flemish 
master as Roger van der Weyden, in the modelling of the nude, the 
landscape background, with its minute details all revealed in strong 
light, and the emotional restraint. But the types with their broad 
faces and full, red lips parted as if speaking are distinctly Nurem- 
bergian. Many of the people, indeed, are, of a certainty, pictured 
direct from life, as the man holding the vinegar-sponge, who, in- 
cidentally, bears a close resemblance to the man similarly occupied in 
Master Berthold's Bamberg Altar. The colouring is still of the old 
school, a heavy brown tone prevailing. 

Very similar to this in almost every respect is another representa- 
tion of the Crucifixion by Pleydenwurff, in the Germanic Museum, in 
which Canon Schonborn of Wurzburg appears as donor. This picture 
of the donor gives, however, no suggestion of the great gifts as a por- 
trait painter revealed by the artist in his masterly portrait of this same 
Canon Schonborn, in the Germanic Museum. The grey-haired cleric 



230 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART 

is presented in half length, against a blue background, holding a book. 
The head is finely modelled, wonderfully soft in contour and amazingly 
lifelike. The rendering of the texture of the skin and of the fine, 
rather thin, grey hair, the lines and wrinkles about the eyes and 
mouth, the keen yet kindly expression, make the man live before us. 
We are made acquainted with both his outward appearance and his 
inner nature, through a portrait which is without peer in German art 
before Diirer. 

Very marked is the influence of Flemish art in Master Pley- 
denwurff 's Landauer Altar — so called because it bears the coat-of-arms 
of the Landauer family — which is now in scattered sections, of which 
the two representing the Betrothal of St. Catherine and the Nativity 
are in the Germanic Museum, two others, representing the Crucifixion 
and Resurrection, in Augsburg Gallery, while two pairs of wings have 
disappeared. In the "Betrothal of St. Catherine" we are shown the 
inside of a room such as Jan van Eyck would have delighted in. On 
the table in the centre are a glass, fork and dish; on the wall, a plate- 
rack filled with shining pewter; below it a cupboard in which is seen a 
flask half full of water; in the rear of the room is a Gothic cabinet with 
wash-bowl and towel; through an open door we look into an adjoining 
bedroom. Out of the windows to the left may be seen, in a flat land- 
scape, a church tower and a farm house with people. In the imme- 
diate foreground of the picture, the Virgin, crowned and invested 
with a large halo, wearing a dress of rich brocade and mantle of plain 
stuff, holds the standing Christ Child, who is placing the ring on the 
finger of St. Catherine, who kneels before him in a mantle of hand- 
some red and gold brocade and a curious, oriental turban of a fashion 
worn by many of the women in Roger van der Weyden's pictures. 

The painter's fame travelled far, so that, in 1462, he was in- 
vited to Breslau to paint a High Altar for St. Elizabeth's Church. 
Unfortunately this altar is now in scattered sections. The " Descent 
from the Cross" (which, when I saw it, was in the hands of 
a picture dealer) presents a high cross set up alone in the fore- 
ground of the picture. Against it are placed two ladders; on the 
one at the back Joseph of Arimathea is standing, and leaning over 
the top of the cross, as he lets down the body of Christ in a winding 
sheet. On the ladder in front of the cross is a youthful figure, his 




Photograph by Fried. Hoefle, Augsburg 

HANS PLEYDEXWURFF 
Portrait of Canon Schonbobn 
germanic museum, nuremberg 




Photograph by Franz Hanfslaengl 



HANS PLEYDENWURFF 

The Crucifixion 
alte pinakothek, munich 



HANS PLEYDENWURFF 231 

back to us, his full garments blowing in the wind, who with much 
energy and solicitude, is receiving the body. At the bottom of 
the ladder is John, one foot on the lowest rung, one hand touching 
the foot of Christ caressingly. Beside him a man who is holding 
the nails, tenderly comforts a grieving woman who is seen in profile. 
To the left of the cross are the other mourners; on the ground are 
flowers, bones, a skull, and a pair of shoes that have been dropped by 
the young man on the ladder. In the background stretches a 
wide, hilly landscape with houses and low, bushy trees. On the 
road to the left several men are walking. 

The form of Christ, though slender, is well constructed and the 
arms, which have been lifted up by the winding-sheet with which 
Joseph supports the body, are so finely modelled that the effect is 
almost sculptural. Remarkable is the impression of limpness the 
painter has succeeded in giving in these hanging arms and in the 
whole relaxed body. The features of the face, though somewhat 
swollen from the recent suffering, are refined, and the whole figure, 
in its helplessness and utter weariness, is most appealing. 

In no better way can we form an estimate of the greatness 
of Pleydenwurff's picture than by comparing it with Michael 
Wolgemut's treatment of the same subject on a wing of the Hofer 
Altar in Munich Pinakothek. How cold the Wolgemut picture is 
in comparison! How self-consciously posed the figures! How in- 
sincere the feeling! Even the youth with his back to us going up 
the ladder — an evident imitation of Pleydenwurff — is posing, not 
hastening in response to an inner impulse. In comparison with the 
older artist, Wolgemut's modelling of the nude is hard and wooden, 
the people are affected, the whole atmosphere is artificial and 
insincere. 

Hans Pleydenwurff was the first to introduce into Nuremberg 
art the new methods learned from the Flemish painters, and 
thus to open up the way which should make possible the accomplish- 
ments of his successors along the fines of modelling and perspec- 
tive. But more impressive than his achievements in his search 
for adequate, technical means of expression, are the sincerity and 
insight which mark him as the greatest of the forerunners of 
Diirer in Nuremberg. 



CHAPTER XXXIII 

NUREMBERG 

MICHAEL WOLGEMUT 

TIE extraordinary degree of fame which Michael Wolgemut 
has enjoyed through the centuries is due in no small measure to 
the fact that Diirer recorded in his diary: "In 1486, on St. 
Andrew's Day, my father apprenticed me for three years to Michael 
Wolgemut. During this period God granted me industry so that I 
learned well, though I had much to suffer from my fellow students." 
So much reflected glory from the great pupil was shed about the teacher, 
that everything of interest in Nuremberg painting from the second 
half of the fifteenth century was ascribed to him, and it is only rela- 
tively recently that such investigators as Seidlitz, Robert Vischer, 
Thode and Braun have discovered the distinct personalities working 
in that period and have made more exact attributions. 

Michael Wolgemut was the son of a painter Valentin Wolge- 
mut, who worked in Nuremberg between 1461 and 1470 but of whom 
no known works remain, and his wife Anna, whose name continued 
on the census list beside her son's until 1480. According to the 
inscription on Durer's portrait of his master, in Munich Pinakothek, 
Michael Wolgemut was born in 1434 and died in 1519 "on St. 
Andrew's Day, early, before sunrise." 

The first notice of him in the Chronicles is dated 1473, and 
is a record of his marriage to Barbara, widow of Hans Pleyden- 
wurff. In the Pleydenwurff home he set up his workshop and 
continued to five there until 1493, when he sold the house to Bartholo- 
mew Eger and bought the house next door, on the corner, which, in 
turn, he sold to the Egers in 1507. That he had become a famous 
painter by the year 1478 is evident from the fact that he was then in- 
vited to Zwickau to paint the High Altar for St. Mary's Church. His 
next large commission was the altar ordered by the Peringsdorffer 
family, of Nuremberg, in 1487. In 1491, according to the record in 
the City Archives, he was engaged to renovate the Schonen Brunnen, a 

232 



MICHAEL WOLGEMUT 233 

commission which he delegated to his stepson, Wilhelni Pleydenwurff, 
who received payment for it from the city. In the same year this 
stepson accepted with Wolgeniut a joint commission for the illustra- 
tion of Hartmann Schedel's "World Chronicle," which appeared in 
Latin in 1493, and in German in 1494. 

In 1500 came an invitation from the town of Goslar to decorate 
with frescoes a room in its City Hall, in appreciation of which sendee 
performed, the Town Council conferred upon him, in the following 
year, honorary citizenship in Goslar. The last of his works of which 
there is a record is an altar painted for St. John's Church, Schwa- 
bach, in 1508. After that date there are no further notices of him 
until that of his death in 1519. His wife Barbara, Hans Pleyden- 
wurff's widow, had died in 1496 and he had married again, one 
Christine, who survived him and lived in Nuremberg until 1550. 

Though not the earliest work we possess from his hand, the 
High Altar in St. Mary's Church in Zwickau is the first one mentioned 
in the records that have come down to us. Its shrine contains in 
wood carving the Virgin as Queen of Heaven, standing on the half- 
moon, and attended by seven female saints. On the outside of the 
outer wings, on a gold background, are the Annunciation, Nativity, 
Adoration of the Kings, and Holy Family. On the outside of the 
second pair of wings, against a blue background of air, are four scenes 
from the Passion, two of which, the Crowning with Thorns and the 
Cross Bearing, are the work of a pupil; on the predella, in wood-carv- 
ing, are Christ and the twelve apostles; on the inner sides of the wings 
are painted figures of saints on a gold ground, in round frames; on 
the outside, the four evangelists and two angels bearing the 
Eucharist. On the back of the altar is the Last Judgment, evidently 
the work of an unskilled pupil, and below it, the Vera Icon, Fall of 
Manna, and Melchisidec blessing the Bread and Wine. 

The altar is impressive in size and in the number and variety of 
subjects treated. The only way to judge of its real rank as a work of 
art, is to spend much time with it, to learn to know intimately the 
people represented, to see how they "wear," to judge of the genuine- 
ness of their natures and the sincerity of the master who created them. 
And it must be confessed that the comparison of Wolgemut's "Descent 
from the Cross" with the treatment of the same subject by Hans 



234 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART 

Pleydenwurff, has made it impossible to look at Wolgemut's work 
with quite the same eyes as before. A study of this great altar- 
piece fails to rid us of the conviction that Michael Wolgemut is 
more concerned with the outward expression than the inner reality; 
that, like a skilful stage manager, he knows what his actors ought to 
seem to feel in order to appeal to us and makes them assume the 
appropriate poses and expressions. But the emotion itself is lacking 
and the expression of it is so evidently a pretense that, after a time, 
it offends us. Technical facility Wolgemut certainly possessed, and 
the power to impress the casual observer at first glance by the size 
and apparent dignity of his figures, the balance of his compositions, 
the cleanness of his drawing and the effectiveness of his fighting. 
Long and close acquaintance with his pictures reveals them, as the 
work of a clever technician indeed, but as insincere and unconvincing. 
His women in their sentimental attitudes are incapable of profound 
emotion; his men, who, at first glance, seem dignified and thought- 
ful are intellectually limited, small in heart and soul; though their 
poses express the utmost interest and concern, they are in reality 
indifferent and even untrustworthy. The great themes the painter 
presents really make no profound appeal to him; they are but oppor- 
tunities for the exercise of his technical facility and his theatrical 
gifts. In the matter of exact reproduction, however, his skill shows 
to advantage, as in the painting of the landscape about Nuremberg, 
which forms the background for most of his scenes; in the fineness 
and beauty of the architectural features in his pictures; the lifelikeness 
of the portraits of real people introduced, and the rendering of ma- 
terials in robes and hangings. For colour, too, he had a considerable 
gift, and one of the chief attractions of the Zwickau Altar is its rich, 
deep colouring and the interesting treatment of the light. 

Unmistakably an earlier work than the Zwickau Altar was the 
Hofer Altar, formerly in Trinity Church, Hof, but now in four 
sections in Munich Pinakothek, one of which, showing the Resur- 
rection, bears on the back of the panel the date 1465. 

The first section represents Gethsemane, with the three disciples 
sleeping, and, in the background, Judas, a monstrous villain, entering 
the garden at the head of a company of soldiers. On the back is the 
Archangel Michael. The second panel shows Christ Crucified. At 




Photograph by Franz Hanfstaenrjl 

MICHAEL WOLGEMUT 

The Crucifixion 
alte pin'akothek, munich 




Photograph by Fran; Hanfstaengl 

MICAHEL WOLGEMUT 

Descent from the Cross 
alte pixakothek, munich 



MICHAEL WOLGEMUT 235 

the left of the cross is the group of mourners, at the right stand sev- 
eral men of evident rank and distinction; the background is an unusu- 
ally fine landscape. On the back is the Annunciation. On the third 
panel is pictured the Descent from the Cross, which has been con- 
sidered already in comparison with Hans Pleydenwurff's treat- 
ment of the same subject. On the back is the Nativity. The 
fourth panel shows the Resurrection. The Christ is represented 
in the act of rising from the tomb, on the cover of which 
kneels an angel holding the grave clothes. Three guards are 
beside it, one of whom, suddenly awakened from sleep, is shad- 
ing his eyes with his hand, as in the Resurrection scene in Pfen- 
ning's Tucher Altar. In the background, three women are ap- 
proaching through a gate. On the back of this panel are Saints 
Bartholomew and James. 

The colouring in the Hofer Altar is much lighter than in the 
Zwickau Altar, but they are otherwise very similar. The influence of 
Hans Pleydenwurff is marked in types, composition and motifs. We 
have already noted this influence in the "Descent from the Cross." 
Now it is possible directly to compare the two artists in their treat- 
ment of a subject, as Pleydenwurff's "Crucifixion" hangs in the 
same room as Wolgemut's in Munich Pinakothek. Compare figure 
with figure. How finely observed, how full of life, how plastic in 
modelling, how sincere in spirit are Pleydenwurff's people, how 
conventional, how sodden and nerveless, how affected those of 
Wolgemut! 

Still another altar which would seem, upon internal evidence, to 
have been done at an earlier date than that in Zwickau, is in the 
church in Crailsheim and represents, in the shrine, the Crucifixion; 
on the wings, scenes from the Passion of Christ and from the Life of 
John the Baptist. The pictures of Christ and the twelve apostles 
with saints, on the predella, are not Wolgemut's but the work of some 
less accomplished painter. This altar leaves us with an impression of 
greater sincerity than any other of Michael Wolgemut's works. The 
men, women and children presented in the various scenes are depicted 
with veracity, their interest seems genuine, their emotion real. 

To the same period as the Crailsheim Altar — probably between 
1474 and 1479 — belongs the large Haller Altar in the little Holy 



236 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART 

Cross Chapel in Nuremberg. This altar shows such great variety 
of workmanship that Vischer and, following him, several other au- 
thorities consider it the work of three artists besides Wolgemut. 
The drawing is plainly all Wolgemut's, the composition and many 
of the types are characteristic. From his hand exclusively are the 
pictures on the inside representing the Cross Bearing and the 
Resurrection; the four on the outer sides of the first wings, repre- 
senting the Annunciation, Birth of Christ, Adoration of the Magi, 
and Presentation are partly his work, and are next in worth, while 
the four scenes from the Life of the Virgin on the outside of the 
second pair of wings are the work of an unskilled pupil. Thode 
considers it possible that this is a work of Wolgemut's middle period, 
not so fine or true as the Crailsheim pictures, but marking the 
transition from them to the more empty and insincere work of his 
later period. 

In this altar, in such a picture as the Cross Bearing, a new 
influence makes itself felt — that of Martin Schongauer. In all 
probability this influence did not come to Wolgemut through direct 
knowledge of the works of the Colmar master, but through Hans 
Schiihlein, whose own treatment of this same subject in the Tiefen- 
bronn Altar contains many motifs taken from Schongauer's engrav- 
ing. In Wolgemut's Altar the motif of Christ propping his knee 
against a stone to get better hold of the cross, is taken from 
Schongauer, and the three warriors to the extreme left of the picture 
are almost a copy of the group in the middle of his engraving. 

A fifth great altar from Wolgemut's hand, that in the parish 
church in Hersbriick, is, unfortunately, not preserved as an entity, 
but hangs in sections in the chancel of the church. There are four- 
teen pictures in all; two large ones, the "Birth of Christ" and the 
" Death of the Virgin," and twelve small ones, eight of which repre- 
sent scenes from the Passion and four, which are the work of a 
pupil, picture scenes from the Life of the Virgin. The types in the 
two large pictures are reminiscent of Schiihlein and are round-faced, 
gentle and tender. The movement is so excessive that the very 
folds of the garments are restless and disquieting. A clue to 
the date of the painting of this altar is given by the fact that the 
drawings for the window to the right of the choir in St. Jacob's 



MICHAEL WOLGEMUT 237 

Church, Nuremberg, bear a striking resemblance to it. As this 
window is dated 1497 it seems probable that the altar was painted 
about that time. 

Among the commissions received by Michael Wolgemut were 
several which, as is quite clear from the testimony of the works 
themselves, he did not execute with his own hand. We know that 
he did not paint the Schonbrunnen in Nuremberg, as he was 
engaged to by the City Council in 1491, for the records prove that 
his stepson, Wilhelm Pleydenwurff, received payment for this work. 
This Wilhelm Pleydenwurff had evidently become an artist of repu- 
tation, since, as we have seen, he was engaged with Wolgemut to 
draw the illustrations for Hartmann Schedel's "World Chronicle," and 
also evidently worked with his stepfather on the illustrations of 
Koburger's "Treasury" (Schatzbehalter) , which was published in 1491. 
To him is now attributed the Peringsdorffer Altar in the Germanic 
Museum, for which Wolgemut received the commission in 1487 and 
which was, therefore, formerly accepted without question as his 
work. 

Much controversy has been waged about the identity of the artist 
who painted the frescoes in the City Hall in Goslar. It is recorded 
that, in 1500, AYolgemut received the commission to paint them and 
that, the next year, in recognition of their beauty and as a token 
of appreciation, honorary citizenship in Goslar was conferred upon 
him; but the evidence of the works themselves points unmistakably 
to a different artist of distinct individuality, who had studied in the 
school of Wolgemut and who knew well the early works of Diirer. 

The council chamber in the City Hall of the picturesque old 
Harz town is modest and quaint, with flat ceiling and small, deep 
windows. Four large pictures representing the Nativity, Adoration, 
Presentation and Ascension fill the middle sections of the ceiling, and 
are separated from one another by heavy wooden frames; prophets 
and evangelists occupy the sixteen small remaining sections. The 
walls are divided by very slender, finely carved, wooden columns 
into Gothic panels of which the top part is filled with decorative 
traceries in wood-carving. In the three panels are set, alternately, 
the figures of thirteen sybils — including the Queen of Sheba — and 
twelve kings, with Burgomaster Johann Papen; in the window 



238 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART 

niches are the patron saints of Goslar: Judas, Thaddeus and Simon, 
also the Virgin and St. Anne, St. Matthew and other saints. In the 
tiny chapel adjoining the council chamber are scenes from the Passion, 
with the Trinity and the Last Judgment. 

Of greatest interest are the kings and sybils, who are given in 
full length, each standing in a sort of loggia, with a low wall as a 
background, over the top of which we can see the landscape. The 
kings are strongly characterised and lifelike, quick in movement 
and tense in bearing. The sybils resemble closely those in the 
Wolgemut-Pleydenwurff illustrations in Schedel's "Chronicle," and 
in their garments and attitudes follow closely the descriptions 
given there. 

The painter of these frescoes was influenced by Durer in his 
treatment of the draperies, which are full and heavy and hang in 
broken folds, and also in his landscapes, which are very similar 
to those in Durer's early works. His outlines are sharp, his colour- 
ing is bright but without much depth, and is rather crudely applied. 
He is a nervous and sentimental artist who represents all his people 
as keyed up to a high emotional pitch. From his hand are, further, 
an altar in the Predigerkirche, Erfurt, and an altar in Brunswick 
Gallery, dated 1506, which has been, by some historians, ascribed 
to Hans Raphon. It is upon the assumption of the correctness of 
this ascription that Vischer bases his attribution of these Goslar 
frescoes to the Saxon master. 

The last commission filled by Michael Wolgemut was the one 
already referred to from the City Council of Schwabach, to paint for 
them an altar "at the price of six hundred guldens," which altar was 
delivered in 1508 and is still in St. John's Church there. 

By Veit Stoss are wood carvings which fill the shrine, the inner 
sides of the first pair of wings and the predella depicting the Corona- 
tion of the Virgin, Adoration, Resurrection, Pentecost, Death of the 
Virgin, and the Last Supper. By Wolgemut are the pictures on the 
predella, which represent the Virgin, Child and St. Anna with John the 
Baptist, St. Martin and St. Elizabeth and, on the outside, the Entomb- 
ment. These pictures show in the main the same characteristics as 
the Zwickau altar, which was painted between twenty-five and thirty 




Photograph by Fried. Hoefle, Augsburg 

WILHELM PLEYDEXWLRFF 

St. Vitus in the Lions' Den 
germanic museum, nuremberg 



MICHAEL WOLGEMUT 239 

years earlier, and their claims to attractiveness are based on the same 
clean drawing, well-balanced composition and clear, warm colouring. 

The paintings on the wings of the altar present scenes from the 
lives of St. John the Baptist and St. Martin. The back of the shrine 
contains the Madonna and Child, Anna and Joachim. The figures 
are full of life and motion, but it is a purposeless and meaningless 
stir; there is no real depth of feeling in those tall people with the 
small heads and quick, restless glances. The types are angular, 
the nude forms ill-proportioned, the profiles out of drawing, the flesh 
tones yellowish and dry. On account of the resemblance of the pic- 
tures on these wings to an altar-piece by Hans Schaufelein in the 
church in Ober St. Veit, near Vienna, some authorities consider 
them youthful works of Schaufelein, done when he was spending 
a part of his Wander jahre in the Nuremberg master's work- 
shop. 

It is not at all to be wondered at that Michael Wolgemut found 
himself obliged thus to entrust the execution of so many commissions, 
in part at least, to his pupils. He had inherited by marriage the 
school of Hans Pleydenwurff ; he had become the unchallenged leader 
and centre of art life in Nuremberg, attracting about him gifted 
pupils from all over Germany, who, in turn, increased his fame, until 
it drew to him from all quarters orders so numerous that it was im- 
possible to fill them all personally. He therefore compromised by 
drawing the design for the whole, as for the Holy Cross Chapel altar, 
or painting with his own hand some section, as the predella of the 
Schwabach altar, and left the rest to a pupil, or pupils, who worked 
more or less under his supervision. 

In his work we find no great advance over that of earlier artists, 
no marked originality of conception or depth of insight. But he 
was a clever adapter of striking features in his predecessors and con- 
temporaries, a skilled technician, a virtuoso who managed to present 
an appearance of something akin to greatness and easily mistaken 
for it. His portrait by Diirer reveals him as a man of good practical 
and business sense; but in the sharp eye, the firmly compressed, thin 
lips is little of the sentiment, the imagination, or the vision which 
may not be lacking in a great creative artist. 



CHAPTER XXXIV 

NUREMBERG 

WILHELM PLEYDENWURFF 

TO Wilhelm Pleydenwurff, son of Hans Pleydenwurff, stepson 
of Michael Wolgemut, painter of the Schonbrunnen and asso- 
ciate illustrator of Schedel's "Chronicle," recent research* 
ascribes the Peringsdorffer Altar, one of the most interesting works 
of the XV century. It was given by Sebald Peringsd5rffer 
about 1488, for the High Altar of St. Augustine's Church, Nuremberg, 
but it is now in sections in the Germanic Museum and the Lorenz- 
kirche. The shrine, which contained, in wood-carving, the figures 
of the Madonna and two saints, has disappeared. On the inner sides 
of the inner wings are represented St. Luke painting the Madonna, 
the Martyrdom of St. Sebastian, St. Bernhard receiving the Dead 
Christ, and St. Christopher carrying the Holy Child. On the other 
wings of the altar are scenes from the legend of St. Vitus, five 
of which are in the Germanic Museum and two in the Lorenz- 
kirche. On the outside of the altar are, in pairs, Saints John the 
Baptist and Nicholas, Catherine and Barbara, Rosalie and Margaret, 
George and Sebald. On the predella are Saints Cosmos and Damian, 
Magdalen and Lucia, and, on the back, the Martyrdom of the Nico- 
median Ten Thousand and of St. Ursula and her Ten Thousand 
Virgins. Naturally, the most important pictures are those on the 
inner sides of the wings. In the upper section of one panel the com- 
position of "St. Luke painting the Virgin" recalls that of Jan van 
Eyck's picture with the same subject, yet is very different in spirit 
from the work of the Flemish Master. The youthful St. Luke, in full, 
gracefully draped garments, is seated in a room before his easel, 
painting busily. Through the window a fine view is given of a land- 
scape with mountains and a fortified town. In an adjoining room, 
which opens into the one in which the painter works, are the Virgin 
and Child, nearer to whose high dignity the painter dares not ap- 

*Thode: Malerschule von Niirnberg. 

240 



WILHELM PLEYDENWURFF 241 

proach. Yet the Virgin is a very gentle young mother and 
the Child winsome and full of life. Beside them, to the left, a fire is 
burning in an open fireplace; to the right is a vase of flowers, some of 
which are strewed on the floor. The poses are all simple and unaf- 
fected; the atmosphere breathes tenderness. 

Below this picture, in the lower half of the panel, the "Martyrdom 
of St. Sebastian " shows the young saint, with ringleted hair, bound to 
a tree trunk and already sinking into unconsciousness from the arrow 
wounds. He stands in a flowery meadow which expands in the back- 
ground into a wide landscape. One villainous-looking wretch is tak- 
ing aim at him, another is spanning his bow, a third is simply looking 
on. A haughty potentate on horseback and attended by an official 
escort directs the proceedings. 

On the upper section of the second panel, is represented St. 
Bernhard kneeling at the foot of the cross and receiving the body 
of the Redeemer in his arms. The saint is sincere and earnest; his 
whole soul goes out in tender yet intense adoration to his Saviour, 
whose sacred body he embraces. In the landscape in the back- 
ground are mountains, trees, shrubs, and a house which is reflected 
in a stream. 

In the lower section, St. Christopher, a large, strong, kindly- 
looking peasant, strides mightily through the stream, his garments 
blown by the wind, his eyes fixed in wondering faith on the Child he 
bears on his shoulder. 

The scenes from the Life of St. Vitus, which, when the altar was 
entire, were seen when the wings were closed, follow the course of the 
legend as told by Jacobus a Voragine, and represent St. Vitus tempted 
by fair damsels by the command of his father; St. Vitus in the den 
of lions into which he had been thrown by order of the Emperor 
Diocletian; the scourging of St. Vitus; St. Vitus and his adherents 
tied to crosses, and the punishment of his persecutors by the miracu- 
lous descent of hail from heaven; St. Vitus healing a man possessed 
of the devil; St. Vitus and his friends, St. Crescentia and St. Modestus, 
tortured in boiling oil — these all in the Germanic Museum; St. Vitus 
and his friends kneeling on the seashore while an angel receives their 
souls, and St. Vitus refusing to worship idols, in the Lorenzkirche. 
The last-named picture is signed with the initials R. F. and is, with 



242 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART 

the other picture from the series in the church and with the "Healing 
of the Man Possessed of a Devil," and the " Martyrdom in Boiling Oil," 
the work of a different painter — a pupil or possibly a fellow student. 
The modelling is wooden, the colouring dry compared with Pleyden- 
wurff 's. In the " Healing of the Man Possessed " there is introduced 
among the bystanders a youth who looks so much like Diirer that it 
seems quite probable that it is actually a portrait, done by a fellow- 
pupil in Wolgemut's workshop. The initials R. F. signed to the 
picture in the Lorenzkirche would lead to the conclusion that this 
fellow-pupil was Rueland Frueauf the Younger, a deduction which 
is further supported by the resemblance of several of the people pic- 
tured on this panel to those in his father's altar in Ratisbon. 

In the scenes painted by Wilhelm Pleydenwurff ,- the conceptions 
are naive and childlike, the representations absolutely literal and 
given in the spirit of unquestioning faith. In the "Tempting of St. 
Vitus," the father, with an expression of countenance worldly, cynical, 
almost leering, tries to place his young son's hand in that of one of 
the fair damsels with whom he is surrounded. Over his shoulder 
a large-featured man, looking out at the spectator, is apparently 
asking how a father can possibly do such a thing; angels to the 
left, in the background, are visibly concerned and distressed. The 
"St. Vitus in the Lions' Den" is given with such literalness that it is 
practically a genre picture. The boyish saint is an appealing figure 
as he kneels in prayer with angels watching over him; men in an 
interesting variety of costumes of the period, peep through the cracks 
in the fence, flattening their noses to see what is happening. The 
lions, it is true, look more like andirons than like living beasts, but 
that they are really by nature very blood-thirsty creatures is thor- 
oughly established by the pile of clean-picked bones in the middle 
of the den! 

On the outer sides of the wings the eight saints are presented in 
pairs, standing on Gothic pedestals which are supported by branching 
vine stems, which are held up, in their turn, by lions, children, goats 
or wild men. On the vines many birds have alighted; the ground 
below is a garden of lilies and small flowers. The women are noble 
and tender, the men dignified and stately, and, in some cases, so lifelike 
as to suggest that they are portrait figures; such an one is St. Sebald, 



WILHELM PLEYDENWURFF 243 

who carries a model of his church and who, judging by looks, bear- 
ing and costume, might have been indeed its real builder, portrayed 
from life. 

Wilhelm Pleydenwurff's types in the PeringsdOrffer Altar have 
longer, narrower faces than Wolgemut's people; their hands, too, 
are characteristic; they are long with bony fingers with prominent 
joints, and are held angularly, whereas the hands of Wolgemut's 
figures have practically no bony construction, but are fat and puffy 
in the body of the hand, with tapering fingers. The expression worn 
by almost all Pleydenwurff's people is one of gentleness and confid- 
ing simplicity. These are yielding, trusting people with credulous, 
imaginative natures, strong only in faith and in power to suffer 
for that faith. On the technical side a definite attempt at an 
effect of chiaroscuro is evident in the treatment of such heads as 
those in "St. Christopher" and "St. Vitus in the Lion's Den," and at 
striking lighting in the landscapes, as that in the "St. Bernhard 
receiving the Body of Christ," and in the shadows on the water in 
the foreground of "St. Christopher bearing the Christ Child." The 
colours are warm, rich and filled with light; the trees, shrubs and 
other details of the landscape are drawn and coloured with minute 
care. 

The PeringsdOrffer Altar reveals an original, interesting person- 
ality, very different from any other expressed in Nuremberg art. 
His limitations are, it is true, as marked as his gifts; passion, intensity 
and dramatic force are absent from his pictures. But he possesses 
a feeling for beauty of form and a considerable gift for colour, which, 
with the quaint literalness of his conceptions, lend his pictures a 
peculiar attractiveness. 



CHAPTER XXXV 

NUREMBERG 

MINOR PAINTERS 

Nuremberg : Jacob Eisner — Master of the Sending out of the Apostles — 

Hans Trautt— Wolf Trautt. 
Bamberg : Hans Wolf — Wolfgang Katzheimer. 

BESIDES Hans Pleydenwurff, Michael Wolgemut and 
Wilhelm Pleydenwurff, there were several lesser masters in 
Nuremberg in the second half of the XV century whose 
works have come down to us. 

Neudorffer in his "Notes on Artists and Craftsmen, 1547," 
writes of an artist, Jacob Eisner, who, he says, "was an illuminator 
who was welcomed by all the patrician families of Nuremberg, and 
who, moreover, played on the lute so well that such great artists in 
organ playing as Sebastian Imhof, Wilhelm Haller and Lorenz Stai- 
ber, with their companions, were very fond of him and daily in his 
company. He painted their portraits, illuminated for them beau- 
tiful books and made them coats-of-arms. " From Jacob Eisner's 
hand we have, in Augsburg Gallery, a signed portrait painted in 
1471, of a young man, whose name, according to the inscription, 
was Jorg Ketzler the Elder. Its sharp drawing, fineness of detail 
and lack of freedom in the larger proportions reveal the fact that the 
artist was a miniature painter. Thode attributes to him also a small 
picture in a glass case in the Bavarian National Museum, Munich, 
which has on one of the wings a portrait of Conrad Imhof, on the 
other, the coat-of-arms of the family, an allegorical figure, and the 
inscription "Conrad Imhof, 23 years old, 1486." Ascribed to him 
are also the miniatures in the so-called "Goose Book" (Das 
Gansebuch) in the sacristy of the Lorenzkirche in Nuremberg. This 
is a book of the mass, the commission for the compiling and illumin- 
ating of which was given by Anton Kress in 1513. The two volumes 
of the book, intended for winter and summer, contain the readings 
for the Holy Days throughout the year. The marginal illustrations 

244 



MINOR PAINTERS 245 

are fanciful, even whimsical and humorous. The one from which 
the book was named the "Goose-Book" decorates the margin of the 
reading for Ascension Day with geese singing, with the wolf as 
leader and the fox as an assistant. 

To a painter named from his work "The Master of the Sending 
out of the Apostles" is now ascribed a picture in Munich Pinakothek, 
formerly attributed to Wolgemut, which represents the apostles 
taking leave of one another to "go into all the world and preach the 
Gospel." The scene is laid in a landscape, in the foreground of 
which is a fountain at which John is getting water in a finely shaped 
pitcher. Peter is drinking from a pilgrim's flask to refresh himself 
for his journey to Italy. James the Elder is bidding him farewell 
and pointing in the direction he wall take to Judea; Thomas has al- 
ready started on his long journey to India; Bartholomew and Andrew 
are embracing each other in farewell; Philip is accompanying James 
the Less a short distance on his way and is apparently giving him 
good advice; in the distance we see Matthias, Thaddeus and Matthew, 
who have started on their several ways to Palestine, Mesopotamia and 
Persia. The picture shows in a marked degree the influence of Wilhelm 
Pleydenwurff ; such a type as that of St. John may be found in Pley- 
denwurff's own pictures, while the atmosphere of dreamy sentimen- 
tality bears witness to a kindred temperament. 

A somewhat later artist was the Master of the High Altar in 
Heilsbronn — another work, which was formerly attributed to Michael 
Wolgemut. The altar was erected by Frederick IV, Margrave of 
Brandenburg, and his wife Sophie, in 1502, and represents, in the 
central section, in wood-carving, the Adoration of the Kings ; on the 
painted wings, the Annunciation, Nativity, Presentation in the 
Temple, Assumption of the Virgin, Mass of St. Gregory, and 
Crucifixion ; on the back wall of the shrine, the Trinity, with St. Francis 
of Assisi and a bishop, the Virgin and five saints, St. Gereon and 
seven warrior saints, St. Ursula with her Virgins and the Pope. 

It is recorded that a Master from Spires, called Hans of Spires, 
and probably identical with the painter referred to as Hans Trautt 
of Spires, worked in Heilsbronn from 1488 to 1495, painting 
frescoes in the Abbey representing scenes from the legend of St. 
Bernhard, and a panel for St. Nicholas's Chapel, portraying its 



246 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART 

titular saint. It seems, therefore, quite probable that this Hans 
Trautt of Spires was the Master of the Heilsbronn Altar. Unfor- 
tunately only one authentic work remains to give an idea of the 
character of this artist's work — a coloured drawing of St. Sebastian 
in the University Library in Erlangen. This drawing was once in 
the possession of Diirer who wrote on it, "This was done by Hans 
Trautt at Nornwerckkg. " 

The colours in the Heilsbronn Altar are light and cheerful, 
and very similar to those employed in the altar by Wolf Trautt, son 
of Hans, which is in the Bavarian National Museum, Munich. The 
flesh tones are very fair and slightly yellowish, the figures are re- 
strained in movement. The artist is tolerably successful with the 
perspective and his technique is facile. 

A son of Hans Trautt, the Wolf Trautt above mentioned, was 
a pupil of Diirer and properly belongs to the XVI century. His 
chief work is the altar already referred to, in the National Museum 
in Munich, which is signed with his monogram \fy and dated 1514 
and which reveals the influence of Diirer and of Hans von Kulmbach. 
It represents the Holy Family, St. Lawrence, eight male and two 
female saints and, on the outside of the altar, four saints and the 
coat-of-arms of the donors. The work is not of any great degree of 
beauty. The figures are very slender, the heads disproportionately 
small, but carefully, indeed minutely, modelled; the colours are 
cheerful. 

BAMBERG 

In the neighbouring city of Bamberg worked some masters from 
the schools of Wolgemut and Pleydenwurff. Such an one was Hans 
Wolf, who appears in the records from 1508 to 1538, and who painted 
the eight panels with scenes from the legends of St. Clara, the disciple 
of St. Francis of Assisi, which are in Bamberg Gallery. In spite of 
the fact that these pictures are badly damaged, one can still see the 
careful detail of the landscapes, the clean, definite drawing and strong 
brown colouring. This Hans Wolf it was who, with another painter, 
Lucas Benedict, welcomed Diirer on his arrival in Bamberg in 
1520. 



MINOR PAINTERS 247 

Another Bamberg master frequently named in the chronicles 
was Wolfgang Katzheimer, mentioned in the years between 1487 
and 1508. His first large commission was for the drawings for the 
Maximilian and Bamberg windows in the choir of St. Sebald's 
Church, Nuremberg. He designed the three monuments in Bam- 
berg Cathedral — those of Prince-Bishop George II, Gross-Trocken 
and Pommersfelden — which were cast in Peter Vischer's workshop. 



CHAPTER XXXVI 

NUREMBERG 
ALBRECHT DURER 

THE XVI cerrtury found Nuremberg the chief centre of the 
intellectual and artistic life of Germany. That cultural wave, 
the Humanistic Movement, sweeping over Europe, left its 
impress strongly, so that scholarship, science, travel, literature and 
art might almost be said to absorb the attention of thoughtful men, 
and learning and enlightenment to become universal. Ulrich von 
Hutten in his "Triumph of Dr. Reuchlin" could cry out: "O Cen- 
tury! Science gains ground, spirits wax strong, barbarism is exorcised; 
it is a joy to live!" 

The revival of the classics, the exhuming of masterpieces of art 
in the land to the south of them, stirred the Germans, not to imita- 
tion but to fresh and independent thought, to original conceptions 
and undertakings. The ideals and standards of a former age were 
not accepted in place of a spontaneous expression of themselves, an 
alien people in a different age, but technique was improved and more 
perfect proportion induced by the study of the masterpieces of antique 
art. The visible and permanent effect in Germany was greater in 
art than in literature, since painting, engraving and woodcuts, rather 
than poetry, were the means of expression in Germany in that age. 
The beauty of the antique, together with the universal spirit of investi- 
gation, impelled the artists to discover laws and principles of art, and 
Nuremberg's supremely great artist, Albrecht Dilrer, was the first 
to make minute and comprehensive theoretical observations and to 
give them to his contemporaries in the form of written instruction. 
Diirer spared no pains in studying art principles and recording the 
results of his investigations. Thus, he wrote from Venice, in 1506, to 
Willibald Pirkheimer, the Nuremberg statesman, humanist and patron 
of arts and letters, that, before returning to Nuremberg he would visit 
Bologna, where, he had learned, was a man — Luca Pacioli, the friend 

248 



ALBRECHT DURER 249 

of Leonardo da Vinci? — who could teach him much about perspective 
and human proportions. This information, together with the results 
of life-long, patient study, he incorporated later in a four-volume 
work, "Human Proportions." 

But the discovery of the masterpieces of antique art, and the 
formulating of laws and principles did not change or vitally affect 
the nature and characteristics of German art. Possibly the fact that, 
in Germany, the Reformation coincided in point of time with the 
Renaissance was in some measure responsible for this. The endea- 
vour of the reformers to get beyond symbols to realities, and their 
impressive and convincing setting forth of the sufferings of Christ 
as the way of human redemption, doubtless turned the attention 
of the artists from classical and mythological themes and even, to 
some extent, from such sacred subjects as are pictorially beautiful, 
toward the portrayal of the emotional and tragic moments in the 
life of Christ. Thus, in spite of the advance in formal proportion, 
modelling, perspective and other technical points, expression of inner, 
emotional life remained the ideal of Diirer even as it had been of the 
earliest German painters, and he remained involuntarily true to it, 
even at the cost, sometimes, of clearness, simplicity, and artistic 
restraint. This persistent, inherent ideal of German art was never 
superseded by any other standards or canons; as long as it remained 
German, expression was its key-note. Thus in all stages of its 
development, we find that it has frequently disregarded outward 
beauty of form in its intentness upon revealing the inner life. From 
the beginning to Diirer the essential Germanic element in art is the 
subordination of the representation of the external, the superficial, 
the phenomenal, to the revelation or expression of the real, the 
inward, which was also the object of the quest of the German 
philosophers from the Mystics to Kant and Schopenhauer. 

From Dtirer's own family chronicle we learn that his father 
came to Nuremberg from Hungary in 1455, worked there twelve 
years as goldsmith with Hieronymus Holper, and married, when 
forty years old, Holper's fifteen year old daughter, Barbara — "a 
pretty, erect young woman." Of their eighteen children Albrecht 
was the third. His birth was recorded by his father: "At six 
o'clock, on St. Prudentius' Day, the Friday of Holy Week (May 21st) 



250 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART 

1471, my wife bore another son, to whom Anton Koburger was god- 
father and he named him Albrecht after me. " 

The boy entered his father's workshop to learn the goldsmith's 
art; but all his inclination was toward painting. At barely thirteen 
years of age he made the portrait-drawing of himself which is 
in the Albertina, Vienna, on which he wrote: "I made this picture 
of myself by looking in a mirror, in 1484, when I was a child. " It 
shows a slender boy with delicate features, his hair falling to the 
nape of his neck, his eyes slightly staring because of looking in the 
glass so intently, wrapped in a large, loose garment and wearing a 
cap. With the index finger of his right hand he is pointing — prob- 
ably at his reflection. The picture is surprising in the feeling for 
space shown in the placing of the figure, in the realisation of materials 
in the folds of the garments, in the light and fine yet assured lines 
of the drawing; it is most appealing in its utter simplicity and in the 
boy's unconscious revelation of his own dreamy, artist nature. 

In his fourteenth year, he drew the "Virgin and Child Enthroned," 
with two tall angels standing beside the throne making music, which 
is in Berlin Print Room. As might be expected, the figures betray 
the youth's imperfect knowledge of the structure of the human 
form. The Virgin's left hand and arm, for instance, are out 
of drawing; but again we are struck by the feeling for space in the 
composition of the picture and by the treatment of the masses of 
material in the garments. The angel at the left possesses distinct 
individuality; even at this early date, the pose, the treatment of hair 
and garments are characteristic and may be called "Diireresque. " 
Beyond this, the affectionate tenderness with which the child seeks 
to gain the attention of his mother, who is lost in thought, and the 
happy earnestness of the angels, reveal depths of feeling and insight 
which are amazing in a mere boy. 

At last his father yielded to his wish and apprenticed him to 
Michael Wolgemut to learn painting. For three years he worked 
with him on the technique of his art, years of which he writes — " God 
granted me industry so that I learned much, though I had a good 
deal to bear from my fellow students. " Then, in 1490, he set out on 
the customary Wanderjahre. Before leaving home, however, he 
painted the Uffizi portrait of his father, holding a rosary, on which 



r ' 1,1-rVf ,.^ 



« r 



■•M-f- - 



«•*■ r . 











/ 


























/ 


, 




ei ^ 




. 





From a Reproduction by J. L. Schrag, \uremberg 



ALBRECHT DURER 

Portrait of Himself at the Age of Thirteen (Drawing) 

albertina, Vienna 



ALBRECHT DURER 251 

appears for the first time the monogram /jjl with which he ever 

afterward signed his works. Though badly restored, the painting is 
lifelike and strong and makes us know the man as Dtirer describes 
him in his diary: "My dear father passed his life in great toil, 
in difficult and arduous labour, having only what he earned by his 
handiwork to support his wife and family. His possessions were 
few and in his life he experienced many tribulations, struggles and 
reverses of all sorts, but all who knew him had a good word to say of 
him, for he clung to the conduct of a good and honourable Christian. 
He brought up his children in the fear of God, that they should be 
acceptable to God and men; therefore he admonished us daily to 

love God and act honourably toward all men He was a 

patient and gentle man, at peace with all men and full of gratitude 
to God." 

Dtirer's wanderings took him to Strassburg, where he studied 
for a time, going on from there probably to Augsburg, then to Colmar, 
where he hoped to learn much from the great Schongauer. When 
he reached Colmar, however, he found that Martin Schongauer was 
no more, but had been cut off by death in his very prime. He seems 
to have remained some time in the workshop with Martin's brother, 
Ludwig Schongauer, who had assumed the direction of the Colmar 
school, for as a souvenir of his stay there he brought home with him 
to Nuremberg a copy of a pencil drawing by Martin, representing 
the Presentation in the Temple, which is now in the British 
Museum. 

In 1494 the painter was again in Nuremberg, betrothed, and, two 
months later, married. "When I arrived home," he wrote in his 
diary, "Hans Frey entered into negotiations with my father and 
gave me his daughter named Agnes and gave me, besides, two hundred 
gulden, and had the wedding on the Monday before St. Margaret's 
Day, in the year 1494." Probably the artist's portrait of himself 
which is now in the collection of Comte de Pastre, Paris,* had been 
sent on to the young lady before Diirer's return to Nuremberg, to 
plead his cause for him. It presents the artist as an elegant youth, 
handsomely dressed, holding in his hand a sprig of the plant called 
Mannestreue (Man's Faithfulness). Underneath is a writing which 

* A fine old XVI century copy is in Leipsic Gallery. 



252 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART 

seems to refer to the significance of the flower: "My affairs go as 
above indicated. " 

He made drawings of his wife at various times, as the one marked 
"Mein Agnes" in the Albertina, the drawing in silver crayon in 
Bremen Kunsthalle, the drawing in Berlin, in which she is wearing 
a Flemish costume, the water-colour sketch of 1500 in the Ambro- 
siana in Milan, and others. She does not seem to have brought 
much inspiration or even joyousness into his life, however, for 
Pirkheimer, who must have known well whereof he spoke, wrote 
in a letter after Diirer's death: "Agnes worried Albrecht into his 
grave. She was virtuous and pious, but I, for my part, would prefer 
a light person, who behaved in a friendly way, to such a nagging, 
suspicious, pious woman." 

In these first years after Diirer's return to Nuremberg he and 
his wife lived in his father's house, and it was not until after his 
father died in 1509, that he bought the so-called "Dilrer House" — 
now in possession of the City of Nuremberg — where his mother lived 
with him. The young man, whose time was not yet fully occupied 
with the execution of commissions, busied himself with making copies 
of engravings by Mantegna and other famous masters, studies of the 
nude, of animals and still-life. In this period, as indeed throughout 
his whole life, he unwearyingly devoted himself to the study of nature. 
"The one test of an artist's conceptions is nature," he wrote; "there- 
fore study her industriously; for truly, art sticks fast in nature and 
he who can get it out, has it. " 

His first commission was for an altar-piece for the Schlosskirche 
in Wittenberg, which is now in Dresden Gallery and represents the 
Virgin and Child, St. Anthony and St. Sebastian. The Child, who 
lies sleeping on a cushion, is plump and rounded in form, the cherubs 
in the decorative vines behind the two saints are sturdy and very 
active and gay. The Virgin is kneeling in adoration of her divine 
Son. St. Anthony, his fine, strong hands clasped over a book, is 
lost in thought; St. Sebastian bends worshipful glances on the 
Babe. On the table in front of the saints are various still-life 
accessories, as a pear, a glass with water and a flower, and an hour- 
glass. Doubtless this Wittenberg commission came to the artist 
from the Elector Frederick the Wise of Saxony, who, at the same 



ALBRECHT DURER 253 

time, sat for the water-colour portrait now in Berlin Gallery, which 
was probably the first portrait of any one outside his own family 
painted by Diirer. 

From 1497 dates the very unusual portrait, in Augsburg Gallery, 
of the youthful Margareta Fiirleger, her wonderful golden hair falling 
about her shoulders, her eyes downcast, her hands folded as if in 
prayer. Its atmosphere of reverential seriousness makes it seem 
probable that this portrait was a study for a Madonna picture. In 
the same year was painted the portrait of his father which is in the 
collection of the Duke of Northumberland; in the next year the 
half length portrait of himself which is in the Prado.* It presents 
him as a young man dressed in the height of fashion, with frank, 
direct gaze and great nobility of expression and bearing. 

During these years in which he was engaged on his commission 
from Frederick the Wise and on these portraits, that is, between 1496 
and 1498, Diirer made the series of fifteen large woodcuts of the 
Apocalypse. The strength, vigour, energy and power, the onward 
rush, the furious sweep in these scenes is bewildering, almost 
overwhelming; but not less impressive is their dignity, their refine- 
ment and their infinite detail. 

The title page shows the youthful John kneeling before God 
the Father, who is enthroned upon the arch of heaven, among the 
clouds, and holds in his right hand the seven stars, in his left the 
Law, while from his mouth proceeds the sharp, two-edged sword. 
In front of him are the seven symbolical candlesticks, each of 
exquisite and individual beauty of design and workmanship. In the 
presence of this majesty, the man kneeling there, though possessed 
of the dignity and worth inseparable from one to whom such an 
audience would be granted, appears very youthful and immature 
and very humble. Yet about the Most High God there is no sugges- 
tion of a brutal, destroying force which takes advantage of supreme 
power to gratify personal caprice or to wreak vengeance; he is the 
Judge, stern, just and righteous. From his throne proceeds judg- 
ment and we follow its execution through picture after picture. 
The trumpets are blown, the riders come, with bows and arrows, 
swords and balances, riding onward over men and women, monks 

* A fine copy is in the Uffizi Gallery, Florence. 



254 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART 

and friars, emperors and popes. Descending to earth from a sky 
of clouds filled with weird riders on vengeance-spewing beasts, the 
great, winged angels swinging their swords "slay and slay and spare 
not." Such movement, such force irresistible possess nature's 
whirlwinds, her terrible hurricane blasts! And withal, each scene 
is given clearly, is conveyed without confusion to the mind of the 
spectator and is done with as minute care for the details of each 
individual figure as if it were the real and only subject of the picture. 

In the year following, 1494, the artist painted the three portraits 
of members of the Tucher family, Hans and his wife Felicitas, in 
Weimar Museum, and his sister-in-law, Elsbeth, in Cassel Gallery. 
The portrait of Oswald Krell, in Munich Pinakothek, which was 
painted in the same year, possesses, however, much more distinction 
than these. Though the pose is rather rigid and the outlines of 
face and features are sharp, the fine bearing, natural expression and 
the colouring, with the rich black velvet and silk cloak with fur 
trimming against the red of the curtain and the blue and green of 
the lovely, sunny landscape with trees and a brook, make the picture 
one of much beauty. 

To the next year, 1500, belongs the artist's wonderful portrait 
of himself, in Munich Pinakothek. He is given in half-length, wear- 
ing a black, fur-trimmed mantle which he holds together lightly with a 
right hand so finely modelled that it is not to be wondered at that 
Camerarius, the Rector of Melanchthon's school in Nuremberg, 
should have exclaimed," One could not imagine anything more beauti- 
ful than Durer's hands!" There is little local colour in the picture, 
which is held in a warm, brown tone. The head is well poised, the 
brown hair falls in fine ringlets to his shoulders, the large, calm, all- 
seeing eyes look straight out at the spectator, the lips are beautifully 
curved and sensitive. In type and in expression, the face and head 
are so like his own Christ ideal as to be almost startling. The whole 
nature of the man is revealed in this portrait; the insight, the vision, 
the purity, the dignity, the high nobility, and the tenderness and 
sweetness which made him "the only man with whom the irascible 
Willibald Pirkheimer never could get angry." 

In the same year as this portrait of himself, 1500, Diirer painted 
the altar-piece, now in Munich Pinakothek, which represents the 



ALBRECHT DTJRER 255 

Mourning over the Dead Christ. It shows the body of Christ, which 
has just been taken down from the cross, supported by Nicodenius. 
One of the women holds Christ's hand in both hers, touching the 
wound in tender pity, her lips parted in loving speech; the Virgin, 
with folded hands, looks down at the form of her Son; at the head of 
Christ kneels an older woman, who, with both hands raised high in 
air, voices loud her grief. At the apex of this pyramidal arrange- 
ment of the people stands John with clasped hands and far-away 
look; Mary Magdalen, at his right, in nun-like garments, leans 
forward to look at the Christ and seems to be about to open the large 
box of ointment she is carrying; Joseph of Arimathea stands at the 
feet of Christ holding the end of the winding sheet and looking 
sorrowfully at his dead Lord. 

In this picture, Diirer is not so free as in the woodcuts or the 
portraits, and the influence of Wolgemut is strongly marked. 
The figure of the Virgin betrays something of the affectation 
which so often strikes a false note in Wolgemut' s tragic scenes, 
the characterisation of Nicodenius is very superficial, the attitude 
of the Magdalen almost theatrical. The colours are strong and 
are disturbing owing to lack of harmonious blending. 

The Pieta, in the Germanic Museum, dating from the same 
period, resembles this one closely though there are fewer people in 
the composition. Both of these pictures were doubtless, in part, 
the work of helpers or students. 

More wholly in Diirer's own manner is the Paumgartner Altar, 
also in Munich Pinakothek, which was painted in 1503. The cen- 
tral picture shows the Holy Family under the temporary shelter 
of a wooden roof set up against the wall of a castle ruin. The Virgin 
and Joseph kneel in adoration of the Child, tiny angels hasten to the 
service of this new-born King; ox and ass look out through the arches 
to the right, and through a doorway two shepherds are approaching. 
Behind them, a view is given of a goodly stretch of landscape. On 
the wings, the donors of the altar, Stephen and Lucas Paumgartner, 
are represented as St. George and St. Eustache. 

In the Virgin of the central picture the artist presents for the 
first time the type which is afterwards his characteristic Madonna 
type. The body is strong, rounded, and not excessively slender, 



256 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART 

the head is beautifully posed, the face a softly curving oval, the eyes 
large, the nose straight and rather short, the chin round, the hair 
golden, with wavy strands escaping from the veil to fall about her 
face; the throat is full; the hands long but plump. The portraits 
of the donors on the wings, though somewhat sharp and hard in 
drawing, are marked by fine, serious dignity. 

The "Madonna nursing the Child," in Vienna Gallery, which was 
done in this same year, in the unusual softness of the treatment of 
the flesh and the extreme sweetness of expression, speaks of the 
beginning of the artist's acquaintance with the work of Jacopo 
de' Barbari, the Venetian painter who, in 1500, set up his studio 
in Nuremberg. 

In the next year, 1504, on a commission from Elector Frederick 
the Wise, Diirer painted the "Adoration of the Kings," which is in the 
Tribune of the Uffizi Gallery. It presents the Virgin holding the 
Child, seated beside the scant ruins of a palace. Before them kneels 
the oldest of the three kings, his gaze bent upon the lovely little 
Babe, who, with childish glee, plays with his two hands in the box 
of gold pieces presented to him. Close at hand stand the other two 
kings; one of them with long, curling hair, clad in beautiful garments 
and holding a tall gold chalice, bears a marked resemblance to Diirer 
himself. In the court without are their servants and attendants, one 
of whom has difficulty in controlling his rearing horse. Outside 
the outer wall of the court is a landscape with a fortified town built 
on a steep hill. The Virgin in the "Adoration" is very similar in type 
to the Madonna in the Paumgartner Altar. She wears the dress of 
the period and is very natural in bearing. The Child is beautiful 
in form, soft in modelling and of irresistible, lifelike charm. 

From this same year, 1504, dates a series of twelve scenes from 
the Passion, in the Albertina, Vienna, drawn on paper tinted green, 
and known, therefore, as the "Green Passion." The scenes are much 
more restrained than those in the Apocalypse or in the woodcut 
Passion which Diirer had engraved five years earlier; the composi- 
tion is simpler, the figures are greatly reduced in number. So, for 
example, in the Pieta there are but two mourning women, and there 
are no such outward manifestations of uncontrolled grief as that of 
the woman who is holding up both hands and crying aloud, in the 




Photograph by Franz Hanfstaengl 



ALBRECHT DIRER 

The Nativity 
Alte Pixakothek, Munich 




A < 

a 



a 

5S W 



=~ a 



ad 



a S 



aj 


U 


6j 




us 


> 

X 


n. 


a 


9 




a 


a 


Q 


o 


"3 


£ 



ALBRECHT DURER 257 

Pieta in Munich. The whole series unfolds like a great drama, 
marked by clearness, naturalness and restraint. In this and the 
following year, Diirer was also engaged on a series of woodcuts 
representing scenes from the Life of the Virgin. The composition 
in each of these pictures is so clear that the story they tell can- 
not fail to be understood. The people are all of the artist's ac- 
quaintance, and are presented with astonishing lifelikeness in the 
costumes he saw them wearing ordinarily. Yet though the hap- 
penings are made so natural by being presented as experiences 
of everyday life, they are by no means permitted to be prosaic. 
Thus, in the "Flight into Egypt," though Joseph in his carpenter's 
apron is busily plying his trade, and Mary, in the plain garb of a 
German Hausfrau, is spinning and keeping one foot on the rocker 
of the wooden cradle in which lies the Child in swaddling 
clothes, his busy helpers are sturdy, little, winged cherubs and 
her companions are tall angels. So for all the scenes there is 
provided by subtle, suggestive touches, an atmosphere of delicate 
fancifulness or of poesy. 

In the latter half of the year 1505, Diirer set out for Venice, 
doubtless with the expectation of receiving the commission to paint 
the altar-piece which the Germans were going to erect in their church 
in that city. On the sixth of January, 1506, he wrote to Pirkheimer 
that he had obtained the commission, and on the twenty-third of Sep- 
tember, that he had finished the work and that there was " no better 
Madonna picture in the land, for all the painters praise it. They say 
that they have never seen a nobler, more beautiful picture, and 
so forth." 

The subject of the picture, which is now in the Rudolphinum, 
Prague, is the Glorification of the Virgin in the Festival of Rose 
Garlands. In a charming landscape, the Madonna sits enthroned; 
saints surround her, angels make music at her feet. Graciously she 
places a crown of roses on the head of the kneeling Emperor 
Maximilian, while the Christ Child crowns Pope Julius II. Among 
the guests at this festival are Doge Domenico Grimani, whom St. 
Dominic crowns, the Patriarch of Venice, and many other well-known 
men of the age, and, standing a little to the right, Diirer himself, 



258 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART 

holding a tablet inscribed with his signature and the date of 
the work. 

The composition is rhythmical in the arrangement of the lines 
of figures; the forms are of great freedom and nobility, the whole 
most decorative, as well as full of charm. Wholly Venetian is 
the angel playing the flute at the Madonna's feet. Contempo- 
rary Italians wrote of the wonderful beauty of the colouring, 
which has unfortunately been lost by retouching. 

In Venice the artist also painted, in five days, "Christ among the 
Doctors in the Temple," now in the Barberini Palace, Rome. It 
shows a very beautiful young boy surrounded by cavilling Pharisees. 
Most interesting is the study of hands in the picture — the fine, 
delicately formed hands of the Child which are moving in a gesture, 
and the veined and knotted hands of the old men about him, one of 
whom is leaning on a book and another turning the pages of an open 
volume in search of a passage to prove his point. 

To 1506 and the Venetian period belongs, also, the "Christ on the 
Cross," in Dresden Gallery, which, though of unusually small dimen- 
sions, is a truly great and monumental work. The conception is 
that of Christ "lifted up" for the healing of the nations. Hence, 
it is not a representation of the scene on Calvary; the crosses of the 
thieves, the soldiers, the mourniug women have no place in it. 
Alone on the hill of Golgotha hangs the thorn-crowned Christ. Face 
and form are of great beauty, delicacy and refinement. The eyelids 
are closing over the eyes that look up to heaven, the lips are parted 
in a last sigh. Yet the beauty of neither face nor form is touched 
by suffering; rather is the impression conveyed by the fight body 
hanging there without strain, the ends of the loin-cloth fluttering in 
the breeze, one of exaltation in the fulfilment of high purpose — 
"I, if I be lifted up, shall draw all men unto me!" — an impression 
which is heightened by the exquisite, glowing colouring and the 
bright loveliness of the landscape that stretches behind the little 
group of birch trees. 

So charmed was the Venetian Senate with the artist's work, 
that they offered him a pension of two hundred ducats if he would 
stay in Venice. The Venetian painters, however, did not look with 
great favour on his presence there, except Giovanni Bellini, of whom 




Photograph hy Franz Hanfstaengl 



ALBRECHT DIRER 

Christ ox the Cross 

gallery, dresden 




i_ . ... 

Photograph by Franz Hanfstaengl 

ALBRECHT DURER 

Adam 
prado, madrid 



ALBRECHT DURER 259 

Diirer had written to Pirkheimer, "He is very old, but still the 
greatest artist of them all," and again, later, that Bellini had praised 
him highly before many nobles and had asked him to paint for him 
a picture for which he would pay well. The story is told that the 
great Italian asked Diirer one day for one of the brushes with which 
he painted hair. Diirer immediately produced a handful of ordinary 
brushes and begged Bellini to take the best or all if he would. "But," 
objected the Venetian, "I mean the ones with which you draw sev- 
eral hairs at one stroke. They must be spread out more and the 
bristles more divided, otherwise, in a long sweep, such regularity of 
curve and distance could not be preserved." "I use none other 
than these," replied Diirer, and taking up one of the brushes he drew 
some very 7 long, wavy tresses such as women wear, in the most regu- 
lar order and symmetry. Bellini looked on wondering, and after- 
ward affirmed that no living being could have convinced him by 
report, of the truth of that which he had seen with his own eyes. 

With mingled reluctance and proud patriotism Diirer decided 
to return to Nuremberg. To Pirkheimer he wrote: "How I shall 
freeze at home, longing for this sunshine! Here I am a gentleman; 
at home, a parasite." And at a somewhat later date, in a letter 
to the Council of Nuremberg he reminds them: "Venice offered me 
an office and two hundred ducats a year; Antwerp three hundred 
Philipsgulden, freedom from taxation and a well-built house; but I 
declined all this because of the particular love and affection I bear 
your honourable Wisdoms and my fatherland, this honourable town, 
preferring to live under your Wisdoms in a moderate way rather 
than to be rich and held in honour in other places." 

The year 1507 found him, therefore, in his own workshop, finish- 
ing the "Adam" and "Eve" now in the Prado, for which studies had 
been made in Venice. The forms are finely proportioned, the contours 
soft, the poses unstudied and expressive. Adam is beautiful as a 
young Greek god; with strong yet fine features, softly-curling hair, 
large, eager eyes, parted lips and that air of looking out upon 
the world for the first time he is less an individual than a 
symbol; he is youth incarnate. 

In 1508 Durer was requested by his old patron, the Elector 
Frederick the Wise, to paint a picture with a subject of which he had 



260 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART 

just made a woodcut — the " Martyrdom of theThebanTenThousand," 
which is in Vienna Gallery. The subject was, from its very nature, 
not one which would inspire a beautiful picture; the composition 
must of necessity be crowded, the various scenes must appear as so 
many episodes, the sentiment must be repellent because of the brutal- 
ity represented. But the work is done with extreme conscientious- 
ness, the characterisation of each individual in that great throng 
of people is truly remarkable. In the middle of the picture Durer 
introduces himself and Pirkheimer as witnesses of the horrors. 

A year earlier, 1507, Durer had received a commission from 
a rich Frankfort merchant, Jacob Heller, to paint an altar representing 
the Assumption of the Virgin. The picture was not finished until 
1509 and several letters concerning it passed between the artist and 
his patron, who was growing impatient at the delay. Durer dwelt 
upon the painstaking manner in which the picture was painted, and 
repeated again and again the assurance that it was being done, not 
only with the best materials, the most expensive gold and ultramarine, 
but with the minutest care and "not as men are wont to paint; so 
that if you will but keep it clean and not let them sprinkle holy 
water on it, it will last five hundred years." The scene repre- 
sented was that of the Virgin borne aloft by angels and crowned by 
God the Father and Christ. On the earth below were the twelve 
wondering disciples, gazing up into heaven adoringly, prayerfully. 
In the middle of the wide landscape stood the artist, his hand rest- 
ing upon a tablet which bore his signature. Unfortunately the origi- 
nal of the picture, which had, in the course of time, come into the 
possession of Duke Maximilian of Bavaria, was burned with the castle 
in Munich in 1674 and we can now know it only from an old copy in 
the Historical Museum, Frankfort, and from Diirer's studies for 
various details, among which the best known is the drawing in 
Berlin Print Room for the clasped "Praying Hands" of a disciple. 

Durer had written to Jacob Heller when he was weary from 
painstaking work on this altar that he would henceforth stick to 
engraving and would "never again attempt a picture with so much 
labour," yet a year and a half later he finished an even larger altar- 
piece, the famous "Trinity adored by All Saints," now in Vienna 
Gallery. The All Saints altar presents, in the upper air, the 




^■^H 



3., 



<■■ 









■x 




ALBRECHT DURER 

Virgin axd Child in a Landscape 

ai.bertina, vienna 



ALBRECHT DURER 261 

Trinity — God the Father, Christ on the cross, and the Dove — 
surrounded by angels. At a greater distance are, to right and left, 
in the curving line of two arcs of a circle, the heroes of the Old and 
New Testaments, saints and martyrs, representing the Church 
Triumphant; below them are the Emperor and Pope with the 
hosts of the faithful, representing the Church Militant. 

The figures are grouped clearly and without confusion. People 
are represented of every age, type and disposition, and each indi- 
vidual is so natural, so carefully characterised that we feel that 
these are, in reality, portraits. And these hosts all unite, with 
great sweep of moving line, in honouring, with heartfelt adoration 
and jubilation, the Three in One, "Lord of all being throned afar." 
Yet though the spectator may be caught in this upward surge of 
nations and ages, may feel himself swept on with them by the 
contagion of their impulse of passionate devotion, it is impossible 
to realise the wondrous beauty of the picture until one has seen 
the colouring. Fresh and luminous, surely, as when they were 
painted, the colours glow like jewels. The fighting is that of 
early evening, which sheds a soft sunset glow over the water of 
the bay, on the shore of which is a peaceful town in a hilly land- 
scape. In the right-hand corner stands the small, solitary figure 
of the artist who saw this vision, his hand resting on the tablet 
bearing his signature. Dignified, serious, quiet, he looks out at 
us with such an expression of reserve force as would seem to say 
what he had previously written — that "the artist's inner self is 
full of pictures"; that he could go on eternally creating just such 
marvellous works. 

From about 1510 or 1511 dates the rather more superficially 
painted "Madonna with the Iris," in the Rudolphinum in Prague, 
and from 1512, the "Madonna with the Pear," in Vienna, a picture 
of exceeding beauty and charm. The Virgin, in a blue robe, with 
a transparent veil over her blond hair, from which curling strands 
escape to fall about the young and lovely face, holds in her arms 
the sturdy boy who grasps a half pear tightly. 

In these years from 1510 to 1512 the artist also painted for the 
Imperial Treasury in Nuremberg, in which were deposited the 
imperial crown jewels and coronation regalia, the pictures of the 



262 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART 

Emperors Charlemagne and Sigismund in heroic size, which are 
now in the Germanic Museum, and which, unfortunately, have 
been seriously injured by retouching. They are, however, ex- 
ceedingly decorative still, and that of Sigismund, particularly, 
gives an impression of great inner intensity and nervous force. 

After 1512 Durer's activity as a painter ceased for some time 
and he devoted himself to making engravings and woodcuts. Draw- 
ings remain from this period, many of which were evidently designs 
for pictures that were never painted. Some of these drawings, 
on tinted paper or washed in with colour, are so careful in workmanship 
and so beautiful that they should be considered finished pictures. 
So, for example, the Madonna in Chantilly and a quite similar 
Madonna in Basel, done in 1509, in which the Virgin and Child 
are presented in a beautiful Renaissance hall, with birds and 
fruits and other rich decorative motifs. The Madonna is youth- 
ful and attractive in type, the Child very lovely. At their feet 
are tiny angels who make music, and little rabbits and mice 
who hurry to join this happy company. To the left, in a 
landscape, is a city built on a hill, which looks very much like 
Nuremberg. 

In 1511 Durer published a second edition of his Apocalypse, 
enlarged his series of woodcuts representing the Life of the Virgin 
and engraved on wood a series of twelve large-sized pages repre- 
senting scenes from the Passion and a cycle of thirty-seven small 
scenes with the same subject. It is a significant commentary on 
his inexhaustible wealth of ideas that he could make so many 
series of Passion pictures presenting the same scenes, and offer each 
time a new conception, a different interpretation. Many single 
engravings on wood and on copper also date from this year, as, for 
example, the "Trinity," a large woodcut which, instead of presenting 
the Trinity in the traditional manner, conceives of it as illustrating 
the text "God so loved the world that he gave His only-begotten 
Son" and shows God the Father holding in his arms the body of the 
dead Christ, over which the Dove is hovering, while mourning angels 
bear the instruments of his Passion. 

In 1512 he finished the greater number of the seventeen en- 
gravings on copper of scenes from the Passion — a volume of noble 




ALBRECHT DURER 

Knight, Death and Devil (Engraving) 



ALBRECHT DURER 263 

poetry, setting forth with great dignity and dramatic power the 
chief moments of Christ's suffering for mankind's redemption. 

In 1513 and 1514 he made the three copper-plate engravings* 
which stand as the high-water mark of German engraving; "Knight, 
Death and Devil," "Melancholy," and "St. Jerome in his Study." 
"Knight, Death and Devil" pictures a solitary horseman, clad in 
armour, his spear over his shoulder, riding along a narrow mountain- 
ous road. Out of the darkening shadows of evening come the weird 
and fearsome forms of the spectre Death, with serpents for his 
crown and necklace, who will ride beside him, and the horned Devil, 
who, with gleaming eyes, reaches out a greedy hand to clutch him. 
The Knight's horse is uneasy, scenting something uncanny; but the 
Knight himself is unalarmed and unconcerned, apparently even 
unaware of the dangers that menace him. Erect and confident he 
rides on, lost in his own high thoughts and noble purposes: 

" The menace of the years 
Finds, and shall find me, unafraid. 
It matters not how strait the gate, 
How charged with punishments the scroll, 
I am the master of my fate, 
I am the Captain of my soul." 

The second engraving, the so-called "Melancholy," shows a 
female figure crowned with the laurel wreath of fame and 
surrounded by all the tools of human knowledge; it is the very 
embodiment of the power of intellect — of genius. Yet all about 
are the depressing symbols of the limitations of the human mind; 
the ladder with its restricted reach, the hour-glass and bell with 
their message of the shortness of the span of human life. Over 
the immeasurable ocean in the background a comet lights the end- 
less space of heaven and calls to birth a rainbow which voices 
the final conclusion of Genius, which sitting there with drooping 
wings, holding the book and compass through which it would 
learn to measure and to know the Infinite, faces the realisation 
of finite nothingness in the presence of the All. 

The third of these great engravings represents St. Jerome as 

* There were originally, in all probability, four pictures, symbolic of the four temperaments, as 
Tausing suggests, but the fourth has been lost or has not yet been identified. 



264 



GERMAN MASTERS OF ART 



M 



DCrer: 

Marginal Drawing 
From Emperor 
Maximilian's Prayerbook 



an old man, working in the cheerful brightness 
of his roomy study, bending his energies to his 
task, seeking to know that he may lead others 
into the paths of wisdom, enlightenment and 
truth. 

In 1514 Durer experienced a great sorrow 
in the loss of his mother, who died May 
17th, after a long and painful illness. A few 
weeks before her death he drew the large 
charcoal portrait of her which is in Berlin 
Print Room. It shows an aged woman, with 
the thin, tired and furrowed face of one who 
has known much care, but with an expression 
of great kindliness. Her son has left the 
written memorial of her: "It was her constant 
custom to go to church. She never failed to 
reprove me when I did wrong. She kept us, 
my brothers and myself, with great care from all 
sin and on my coming in or my going out, it 
was her habit to say 'Christ bless thee.' I 
cannot praise enough her good works, the kind- 
ness and charity she showed to all, nor can I 
speak enough of the good fame that was hers." 

A new field of work had now opened for 
the artist. In 1512 he received a commission 
from the Emperor to make for him what was to 
prove the largest woodcut known, the "Tri- 
umph of Maximilian." The first part, the "Tri- 
umphal Arch," an enormous picture engraved 
on ninety-two blocks and representing scenes 
from the life of the Emperor, was done in the 
years between 1512 and 1515; work on the sec- 
ond part, the "Triumphal Car," was interrupted 
by the death of the Emperor. The exquisite 
drawings for it are in the Albertina, Vienna. Of 
more charm than the gigantic "Triumphal Arch" 
are the forty-five marginal drawings the artist 



ALBRECHT DERER 265 

made for the Emperor's Prayerbook, which show remarkable va- 
riety in subjects, design and ornamental features. Realistic, dra- 
matic, phantastic or gracefully decorative, they are all of fascinat- 
ing beauty and inexhaustible charm. 

In 1516 Diirer resumed his activity as a painter, with the por- 
trait of his old master, Michael Wolgemut, which is in Munich 
Pinakothek, the pictures in tempera of the heads of the Apostles 
James and Philip with the silvery beards, in the Uffizi, and the 
dreamy "Madonna and Child" in Augsburg Gallery. From 1518 dates 
the Madonna picture in Berlin Gallery which is very similar to the 
Augsburg picture, but which has lost much of its beauty through 
retouching. The "Lucretia stabbing herself," in Munich Pinako- 
thek is merely a study of the human form, with none of the 
dramatic quality it would possess had the artist desired to 
present it as the moment of climax in a tragedy. 

To 1519 belongs the portrait of the Emperor Maximilian, in 
Vienna Gallery, which was done after the Emperor's death, from a 
drawing the artist had made in Augsburg the previous year, 
which bears the inscription: "This is Emperor Maximilian whose 
portrait, I, Albrecht Durer, made in Augsburg in the Pfalz, in a 
little room, in the year 1518, on Monday after St. John the 
Baptist." The Emperor wears a purple mantle with sable trim- 
ming and a black hat under which the hair falls heavy and 
straight to the nape of his neck. On a broad chain about his 
neck hangs the Golden Fleece. Dignified, reserved, compre- 
hending, this portrait summons before us the "Last of the 
Knights," at once emperor, soldier, courtier, scholar and patron 
of the arts. 

In the summer following the death of the Emperor, on July 12th, 
1520, Diirer, with his wife and a maid, started on a journey to the 
Netherlands, of which he has left us a minute account in his diary. 
He proceeded along the Rhine to Cologne and thence to Antwerp; 
visited Aix-la-Chapelle, Ghent and Bruges; witnessed the coronation 
of Charles V at Antwerp and the great festival held in his honour in 
Cologne; was presented to Margaret, Regent of the Netherlands; 
was entertained by artists, municipalities and kings, and with youth- 
ful curiosity and enthusiasm travelled away up to Zealand to see a 



266 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART 

whale that had been stranded on the shore. And everywhere he 
went he made sketches of people and cities, buildings and animals. 
Portraits he painted, too; among them the lifelike and distinguished 
portrait of Barent van Orley, court painter to Duchess Margaret, 
which is in Dresden Gallery; of "A Man," in a fur mantle and 
wearing a broad-brimmed hat, in the Prado, Madrid, and of "An Old 
Man," in the Louvre. Of equal interest with these portraits in 
oils are his portrait sketches in charcoal, including those of Eras- 
mus, looking down and smiling slightly, of Paul Topler, Martin 
Pfinzing and many other famous people of that day. 

He has much to say, in his diary, of the warmth of the welcome 
he received from the Flemish artists, Joachim Patinir, the land- 
scape painter, Barent van Orley, Lucas van Leyden, the engraver, 
and Gerhard Horebout the illuminator; of the honour shown him by 
the high dignitaries of the Netherlands and by the visiting monarch, 
King Christian II of Denmark, who entertained him at dinner and 
whose portrait he drew in charcoal and also painted in oils "with 
borrowed colours." Indeed, everywhere he went, everyone desired 
to do homage to the great master. 

But in the midst of travels, festivities and work, Durer did not 
lose sight of the happenings in his own country, which was thor- 
oughly aroused and split into factions by the Lutheran movement. 
Shortly before leaving for the Netherlands, in 1520, when Luther, 
having made his appeal to the German nation and burned the Papal 
Bull, was in great danger, Durer had written to Spalatin, chaplain 
and private secretary to Elector Frederick the Wise of Saxony, 
acknowledging the receipt of one of Luther's works which the Elector 
had sent him as a gift, and praying him to "beseech his Electoral 
Grace to take the estimable Dr. Martin Luther under his protection 
for the sake of Christian truth, for that is of more importance to 
us than all the power and riches of the world; because all things pass 
away with time; truth alone endures forever," and adding that 
if ever he should meet Luther he would " draw a careful portrait of 
him from life and engrave it on copper for a lasting remembrance." 
Now, in 1521, he received in Antwerp the news that, in spite of 
the Emperor's safe conduct, Luther had been taken prisoner near 
Eisenach. Everyone believed this would prove a repetition of the 



ALBRECHT DURER 267 

Huss tragedy; that it meant Luther's death. In passionate grief 
and anxiety, Durer wrote: "O Lord Jesus Christ, pray for thy peo- 
ple, redeem us in thy right time. Keep us in the true Christian faith, 
gather thy widely scattered sheep by the call of the Holy Word, 
help us to recognise thy voice and not follow the lure of specious, 
human arguments, that we may not depart from Thee. O God, 
Thou dost will that before Thou dost exercise judgment, that, as Thy 
Son, Jesus Christ must die at the hands of the priests, that it shall be 
even so with his successor Martin Luther, . . . him thou wilt 
also bring to eternal life. . . . But, O God! if Martin Luther 
is dead who will preserve to us thy Holy Evangel ! What all might 
he not have written for us in the next ten or twenty years ! O ! all 
you pious Christians, help me to pray God that he may send us an- 
other in his stead! O! Erasmus of Rotterdam, where art thou? 
See what the unjust tyranny of worldy might and the powers of 
darkness are accomplishing! Hearken, thou Knight of Christ, ride 
forth beside the Lord Christ, defend the truth, win the crown of 
martyrdom." 

In the following summer the painter returned to Nuremberg 
and received at once a commission from the City Council to 
decorate the Council Chamber with frescoes for which he, how- 
ever, made only the drawings. The themes were the "Triumphal 
Car of Emperor Maximilian," of which Durer made a woodcut 
in 1522; "Calumny," for which a very careful drawing is in the 
Albertina; and the "City Musicians." The pictures after these 
designs are still to be seen in the City Hall; they were possibly 
painted originally by Durer' s pupil Georg Pencz, but have been 
repainted. 

The chief works that have come down to us from this period 
are portraits engraved or done in oils. In 15l2 was painted the 
beautiful picture in the Prado, of the Nuremberg patrician, Hans 
Imhof the Elder, wearing a broad-brimmed hat. The most inter- 
esting copper-plate portraits are the two of "the great Cardinal" 
Duke Albrecht of Brandenburg, which were engraved in 1524; of 
the humanist, Eoban Hesse, 1522; of Willibald Pirkheimer, states- 
man, scholar and Diirer's lifelong friend, 1524; of Elector Frederick 
the Wise of Saxony, 1524; of Erasmus and Melanchthon, 1526. 



268 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART 

In this year, 1526, the artist painted his last portraits in oil. 
That of Pirkheimer's son-in-law, Johann Kleeberger, in Vienna 
Gallery, is in medallion form and like an old Roman portrait- 
bust. That of Jacob Muffel of Nuremberg, in Berlin Gallery, 
introduces us to an earnest and forceful old man who stood high 
in the councils of his city. But perhaps the most beautiful of 
all Diirer's portraits is the one of Hieronymus Holzschuher, in 
Berlin Gallery. It is a picture showing head and shoulders of a 
fine-featured old man with fresh colouring and silvery hair and 
beard, who looks out with such a penetrating glance and such 
an expression of life, that the whole personality stands revealed 
to us with almost startling power. The modelling is soft and life- 
like, the bearing free, the colouring harmonious, the treatment of 
the grey hair and beard truly wonderful in its effect of naturalness 
and of picturesque beauty. 

During his stay in the Netherlands the artist had conceived the 
idea of making in woodcuts yet another series of scenes from the 
Passion. This work he now resumed, but it did not reach comple- 
tion as a whole, and only single engravings and drawings remain to 
us, in Florence, Frankfort, and the Germanic Museum. 

In 1526 Diirer was moved to create what proved to be his 
last great work. Without commission to do the work, out of the 
fullness of his heart, as a gift, he painted on two panels, the "Four 
Apostles," and presented the pictures to the council for the City of 
Nuremberg. In the letter of presentation the artist reveals the 
nobility of his ideals for his work and his humility as to his own 
attainments. 

"Prudent, honourable, wise, dear Masters," the letter runs, 
"I have been intending for a long time past, to show my respect 
for your Wisdoms by the presentation of some humble picture of 
mine as a remembrance; but I have been prevented from so doing 
by the imperfection and insignificance of my works, for I felt that 
with such I could not well stand before your Wisdoms. Now, how- 
ever, that I have just painted a picture upon which I have bestowed 
more trouble than on any other painting, I considered none more 
worthy to keep it as a remembrance than your Wisdoms." 

On the one panel are represented Peter and John, on the other 




Photograph by Franz Hanfstaengl 



ALBRECHT Dl RER 

Portrait of Hierontmus Holzschuher 
kaiser friedrich museum, berlin 




Photograph by Franz Hanfstaengl 



ALBRECHT DtlRER 

Foi-r Apostles 
alte pixakothek, munich 



ALBRECHT DURER 269 

Mark and Paul. The figures are marvellously human and full of 
life yet are conceived in monumental, ceremonial style. Peter, 
sombre and intense, John, dreamy and tender, Paul, commanding, 
keen and forceful, Mark, emotional and poetic, are well fitted to 
fulfil the purpose for which, according to the inscription, they were 
intended — to utter their warnings against falsehood and evil, their 
admonitions to truth, uprightness, sincerity and Christian love, 
forever, from the Rathaus walls to the councillors and people of 
Durer's city.* 

The next year, 1527, Diirer published a long essay on the "Art 
of Fortification." This was his second written work, as he had given 
out, in 1525, a volume entitled "The Teaching of Measurements 
with Rule and Compass." He was also preparing for publication 
a four-volume work, "Human Proportions," upon which he had been 
engaged almost all his fife. Two books only were ready for the press 
when the artist died suddenly, April 6th, 1528. 

He had not been in good health since his trip to Zealand, where he 
had contracted a strange illness which the doctors could not under- 
stand. In his pain he had made a drawing of himself in dull red 
crayon, which is almost like a study for a "Man of Sorrows;" he 
is pointing to a spot on his side, and on the picture is written, "Here 
where the yellow spot is, at which my ringer points, is the seat 
of my illness." But no one knew he was more ill than usual 
and his death came as a shock, deeply felt by men of great 
minds and hearts all over Europe. "I have lost the best friend 
I ever had on earth," cried Pirkheimer. Camerarius, in his Latin 
preface to the posthumous publication of Durer's work, "Human 
Proportions," could not find words in which to express his appre- 
ciation of his scholarship, his artistic genius, his beautiful dispo- 
sition, his pure, unspotted soul. Melanchthon mourned the loss 
all Germany must surfer in his passing. Luther wrote to Eoban 
Hesse, "We may count him fortunate, whom Christ has so 
illumined, that he is taken away out of these stormy times, 
which, I foresee, will become yet more stormy, that he who was 

* Maximilian of Bavaria managed by force and intrigue to obtain these pictures from the 
Nuremberg Council and they now hang in the Old Pinakothek, Munich. 



270 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART 

worthy to see only the best, should not be obliged to see the 
worst." 

After the lapse of two centuries we hear the estimate of Diirer's 
work and art from the lips of another supreme genius of his nation, 
Goethe: "In truth and nobility and even in beauty and grace, 
Diirer, if one really knows him with heart and mind, is equalled by 
only the very greatest Italian masters." 



CHAPTER XXXVII 

NUREMBERG 

PUPILS AND FOLLOWERS OF DURER 

Hans Diirer — Hans Springinklee — Hans Suess von Kulmbach — Hans Leonhar 
Schaufelein — Master von Messkirch (Jorg Ziegler) — Georg Pencz — Hans 
Sebald Beham — Bartkel Beham 

FOR a quarter of a century after Diirer's death his pupils and 
followers continued to work more or less in his manner. Of 
these there were two generations. The older was composed of 
such painters as Hans von Kulmbach and Hans Leonhard Schaufelein, 
artists but little younger in years than the master, who were his 
students and assistants and whose works always gave distinct evi- 
dence of their association with him, even though they themselves 
went out into other cities and set up schools of their own. To the 
younger generation belonged Georg Pencz, Hans Sebald and Bar- 
thel Beham, who were practically the last of the characteris- 
tically German artists; indeed their works, before the end, re- 
vealed the ascendancy of that Italian influence which dominated 
the art of Germany in the two centuries following. 

Among the followers of Diirer must also be reckoned his own 
brother Hans, who was but a faulty imitator of the great Albrecht. 
Hans Diirer, the youngest member of the family, born in 1490, was 
but twelve years old when his father died, and his brother seems to 
have taken almost fatherly care of him. He taught him the rudi- 
ments of painting and, as he wrote to Pirkheimer, "wanted to bring 
him to Venice, but his mother was afraid that the heavens would 
fall on him." So he made arrangements for the boy to continue 
his studies with Wolgemut until his return from Italy. In 1515 we 
find him associated with Albrecht in illustrating the Emperor Max- 
imilian's Prayerbook, for which he made twenty-two marginal draw- 
ings which carefully reproduce the external characteristics of his 
brother Albrecht's style but without a trace of his genius. When 
he tries to draw with soft and yielding outlines, he is inaccurate; 
when he endeavours to characterise minutely, the work is that of an 

271 



272 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART 

amateur who loses sight of the whole in wearisome over-emphasis of 
detail. 

The year after his brother's death Hans Diirer went to Cracow, 
where he remained until 1538 in the service of the King of Poland. 
To this period belongs the picture in Cracow Museum, signed with 
the monogram HD and dated 1526, which represents St. Jerome 
in the forest kneeling before a cross. The landscape, with its dark 
green trees, yellow light falling in dots and patches on the leaves 
through which the pale blue sky shimmers, is reminiscent of Alt- 
dorfer. The conception is lacking in inspiration, however, and the 
execution is craftsmanlike in character. 

A pupil who was closely associated with Durer in the early days 
was Hans Springinklee, of whom Neudorffer records: " Springinklee 
lived in the house with Albrecht Durer; he learned his art there, so 
that he became famous in painting and drawing." Of authentic 
works only woodcuts remain, however, though Schausing attributes 
to him also the eight drawings that are signed with a crane in the 
Munich section of Emperor Maximilian's Prayerbook. 

Better fortune has attended the works of Hans Suess, called 
Hans von Kulmbach from the Franconian village in which he was 
born in 1476. His student years were spent in Nuremberg, at first 
with the Venetian Jacopo dei Barbari, who in 1500 set up a school 
there, and later with Diirer. The influence of both masters is felt in 
his "Adoration of the Kings," in Berlin Gallery, which was painted 
in 1511. The setting, beside the arches of a ruined castle, is simi- 
lar to that in Diirer's "Adoration," in the Uffizi, but the composition, 
while well-balanced, is not so significant. The Virgin and Child 
are seated quite to the left in the picture and two of the worshipping 
kings are permitted to come almost directly between them and the 
spectator, so that, since their position is not elevated, they do not 
claim the instant attention which is their due, as the centre of 
interest in the scene. The Virgin is of the full, Venetian type of 
Jacopo dei Barbari's women; like his are also the light flesh tones 
with yellow shadows. Behind the holy pair, Joseph is shaking 
hands with a man in handsome, fur -trimmed robes, evidently the 
donor. To the right of this group, between the arches, may be 
seen approaching the third king; a servant is handing him a golden 



PUPILS AND FOLLOWERS OF DURER 273 

urn. Behind him are the members of his suite arrayed in a great 
variety of costumes; among them are two attendants who are mounted 
on heavy horses. In the middle of the group stands a man in 
simple garb and a small black cap, who manifestly does not belong 
to the company as either king or servant and who surveys the scene 
with such absorbed interest, yet with such an air of detachment 
that he attracts our notice. It is evidently the artist himself who 
has chosen to be present on this ceremonial occasion and not 
simply to be content with the monogram II. K. and date 1511, 
on the pillar to the left. The people in this picture are all 
attractive and refined, the colouring is pleasing and the shimmer- 
ing robes and gleaming gold and jewels are rendered with great 
naturalness and beauty. The atmosphere is heavily charged with 
sentiment, so heavily, indeed, that we receive the impression that 
it is injected purposely and consciously and that the languish- 
ing glances are an outcome of the painter's intellectual judgment 
rather than the spontaneous expression of the actors' emotions. 

Two years later the artist painted an altar for Lawrence Tucher, 
which was set up in St. Sebald's Church in Nuremberg in 1513. It 
presents, in a landscape, the Virgin and Child, toward whom two 
angels are flying, bearing a crown. The attitude of the Virgin and 
the treatment of the beautiful landscape recalls many drawings 
by Durer which have the same theme. Beside the Madonna stand 
St. Catherine and St. Barbara; on the wings are other saints and the 
donor. The types of people are the same as those in Jacopo dei 
Barbari's pictures and the little angels who make music at the 
feet of the holy pair are like those in the Venetian Madonna 
pictures. 

Very Venetian is also the "St. George," in the Germanic Mu- 
seum, which is attributed to Hans von Kulmbach. The youth- 
ful saint is presented standing in a richly ornamented Renaissance 
arch, clad in shining steel armour on which the light plays enchant- 
ingly, his gauhtleted hands resting on a heavy flagstaff which he 
supports against his shoulder and from which hangs a red flag. His 
features are long and fine almost to the point of sharpness, his large 
eyes are rather staring, his blond hair curls riotously all over his 
head. With the light playing on the armour, on the heavy halo 



274 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART 

and the curls, and the splash of red flag behind the figure as the 
only positive note of colour, the effect of the whole is wonderfully 
decorative. 

More German are the types presented in the eight scenes from 
the Lives of St. Peter and St. Paul in the Uffizi Gallery, Florence. 
In the "St. Peter Preaching," for example, though the setting is in a 
room which is elaborately decorated with garlands, and though the 
saint himself is almost effeminate in appearance, the muscular 
men in the audience with their low, square foreheads and irreg- 
ular features are German in type as are also the women in their 
characteristic white caps. The latter, to be sure, are seated so 
that we can see the faces of only three or four of them; of the 
others nothing is visible but the tops of those white headdresses — 
an effect which is surprisingly like that gained by some of our 
very modern painters in pictures with such a subject as "A Fete 
Day in Brittany." 

In 1514 the artist went to Cracow, where he preceded Hans 
Diirer as court painter. The four years spent there were most 
fruitful, and in its churches there are to be seen thirteen of his 
pictures. In St. John's Chapel are four large panels which present, 
from the Life of St. John the Evangelist, the scenes of the Last 
Supper, the Blessing of the Chalice, the Martyrdom in Boiling Oil 
and the Revelation on Patmos. 

In "The Last Supper" the men are quite Diireresque, and the 
draperies are handled in the manner of the Nuremberg master. The 
excitement and anger in the faces and gestures of the disciples when 
they learn of the treachery of one of their number are well enough 
rendered but fail to be impressive because they are not spontaneous 
but are obviously studies in expression. 

In composition and setting, "The Blessing of the Chalice" re- 
sembles a Venetian pageant picture, though it is less elegant and 
imposing. It shows St. John ascending the steps of the High Priest's 
throne, watched with amazement by a throng of people as he 
blesses and renders harmless the poisoned drink that has brought 
death to the criminals whose bodies are still lying where they fell. 

Quite lovely is the Vision of the Virgin vouchsafed to the lone 
scribe on Patmos. Over the saint and the beautiful island with its 




Photograph by Fried. Hoe/te, Augsburg 

HANS SUESS VOX KULMBACH 

St. George in Armour 
germanic museum, nuremberg 




Photograph hy G. Brogi, Florence 



HANS SUESS VOX KILMBACH 
St. Peter Preaching 
uffizi gallery, florence 



PUPILS AND FOLLOWERS OF DURER 275 

mountains and its waterfall, is shed, from the opened heavens, a 
miraculous light that glorifies the whole scene. It is not exalted, 
it is true, to the height of a sublime vision such as Griinewald saw; 
Hans von Kulmbach was not great enough in mind or imagination 
to be able to bear the really opened heavens; but the world catches 
radiance for a moment in this picture and can rejoice even in the 
lesser gift. 

Similar effects in lighting have been sought by the artist, but 
with less success, in some of the eight pictures from the legends of 
St. Catherine of Alexandria, which are in the sacristy of St. Mary's 
Church. An unearthly light is shed upon the kneeling saint when 
there is vouchsafed to her the Vision of the Queen of Heaven; 
the snow-clad mountains are bathed in the beauty of the afterglow 
in the scene of her Burial, while, in her Assumption, the whole sky 
becomes one great rainbow. But beautiful as are these effects of 
lighting, they fail to be convincing, because of the superficial nat- 
ures of the people whom such glory is supposed to attend. It is 
much more radiance than is really necessary to reflect the shallow 
emotions and calculated poses of those taking part in the scenes. 
It does not seem reasonable that the whole glory of the celestial 
world should be poured out upon people who are so far from 
rhapsodical, so little ecstatic as these; it is an experience which 
must, in large measure, create itself in fervor of soul and imagi- 
native reach; and its effect when it fails to be consorted with such 
inward cause is merely that of a clever bit of technique. 

In 1520 the artist left Cracow and returned to Nuremberg 
where, two years later, he died. 

Hans Suess von Kulmbach was not greatly gifted with either 
insight or imagination. His colouring is usually pleasing, and his 
rendering of materials is of exceptional loveliness. His people are 
attractive but rather superficial and are not characterised by self- 
forgetfulness or absorption in great thoughts, noble ideals or 
imaginative visions. In spite of a misleading appearance of it 
due to the fighting, they are without the power of spiritual 
rapture. Hence his pictures are simply pleasing without the 
power to stimulate or exalt. 

Closely associated with Diirer personally, was Hans Leonhard 



276 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART 

Schaufelein, a member of a Swabian family, whose father had moved 
from Nordlingen to Nuremberg in 1476, some four years before his 
son's birth. He probably learned the rudiments of his art from 
Wolgemut, for when Durer returned to Nuremberg after his Wander- 
jahre Schaufelein was sufficiently schooled to enter his workshop as 
an assistant. In 1512 he went to Augsburg for a time, then in 1515, 
took up his residence in Nordlingen, where he remained until his 
death in 1540. 

One of his first works was the altar in the church in Ober St. 
Veit, near Vienna, which was painted for Elector Frederick the Wise 
in 1502 and which was formerly ascribed to Durer. On the ground 
of their resemblance to this altar the pictures on the wings of the High 
Altar in St. John's Church, Schwabach, which for so long were 
attributed to Michael Wolgemut, are now believed to be Schauf- 
elein's work. To this early period belong also, doubtless, the seven 
scenes from the Life of Christ, in Dresden Gallery, which were 
formerly vaguely assigned to Diirer's School. 

Characteristic of the artist's Nuremberg period is such a picture 
as the one in the Germanic Museum representing Christ on the 
Cross, John the Baptist and King David, with, in the background, 
Moses receiving the Tables of the Law, which was painted in 1508. 
The scene is set in a landscape with a cloudy, troubled sky. The 
forms are slender, well rounded but weakly modelled; the faces of 
the women are short with regular and fine features, the men possess 
considerable dignity and refinement, though they do not appeal to us 
as particularly virile or strong personalities. A touch of pictur- 
esqueness is lent to their appearance by their tumbled hair and their 
curling beards which are always tossed as if blown by the wind. The 
Christ type is modelled after Diirer's but is so much less noble as to 
be unimpressive, almost insignificant. The conception of the scene 
is altogether lacking in bigness of comprehension and in depth of 
insight. 

Whenever possible, indeed, the artist passes over the deepest 
significance of a serious or tragic scene in favour of the simple story, 
which he tells with true Swabian grace. So in "St. Jerome in the 
Wilderness," in the Germanic Museum, though he presents in the 
foreground the saint kneeling before the crucifix, his garments dropped 



PUPILS AND FOLLOWERS OF DURER 277 

to his waist and in his right hand the round stone with which he will 
subdue the flesh, there is in the kneeling figure no suggestion of self 
negation, self abasement or inner conflict. It is impossible to regard 
his problems as of tragic seriousness. This is just "a story" like 
any other folk or fairy tale. We go on at once to read the rest of it. 
Behind the saint on a tree trunk hangs his Cardinal's hat, on the 
ground before him are an open book and a death's head; in a grove 
of trees to the right is the little monastery chapel. Down the road, 
through the lovely wooded bit of landscape which the high hills in 
the near background shut off from the rest of the world, comes the 
lion driving the camels he has captured home to the cloister, which 
he serves out of gratitude to the saint for healing his hurt paw. His 
office it was to guard the monks' donkey; but once, overcome by 
weariness, he fell asleep and a passing caravan of merchants stole 
the donkey. When he awoke, the lion, in terrific, righteous wrath, 
hastened after them, frightened them into flight, and then, as we 
can see, with stern but satisfied air, drove their richly laden camels 
as just and proper compensation home to his monastery. The 
story is charmingly told, in a setting of unusual loveliness and with 
much beauty of colour. 

It was doubtless upon an invitation from the City Council that 
the artist removed to Nordlingen in 1515, for in the same year he 
painted the scenes from the story of Judith on the wall of the City 
Hall there. The mountainous landscape of the picture is divided into 
sections in each of which a scene is set. In the middle distance are 
Judith and her maidens; to the left, preparations for battle are in 
progress; in the foreground are Judith and Holof ernes. The whole 
landscape is crowded with figures arrayed in the costumes of the 
period, marching, sleeping, busied about many and various things, and 
all in considerable confusion, so that it is difficult to distinguish the 
different scenes and to relate them to one another. Of the colouring 
we can form no idea, as the picture, which was originally done in 
tempera has been thoroughly restored in oils. 

It was after he moved to Nordlingen that Schaufelein painted, 
in 1521, that most beautiful of all his works, the altar-piece presented 
by Nicholas Ziegler to St. George's Church there. The picture from 
the shrine, "Mourning over the Dead Christ," is still in the baptistery 



278 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART 

of the church; the wings, containing the figures of Saints Barbara, 
Elizabeth, Nicholas and another bishop, have been removed to the 
Museum. The two female saints are of rare loveliness. They are 
presented standing on a base of coloured marble, in plain Renaissance 
niches almost without ornamentation, and are dressed richly yet 
very simply, in costumes of Schaufelein's day, which are faithfully 
rendered without any superfluous folds or quirks in their draping. 
St. Barbara, the softly rounded oval of her face framed by her abun- 
dant hair, which, falling low over her ears is then bound up under her 
crown, stands with downcast eyes and an expression of gentle com- 
passion, holding in her hand a chalice and a white scarf. She is the 
helper of men in their last need; those who trust in her shall not die 
without the saving sacrament. 

St. Elizabeth, slightly more mature, her hair entirely covered by 
a cap, the frill of which falls softly about her face, is pouring wine 
from her pitcher into the bowl of a rather elaborately draped beggar 
who sits at her feet. Her expression is altogether winning in its 
utter lack of self-consciousness, its responsive sympathy and kindli- 
ness. There are few figures in any art more graceful and attractive 
than these; but they are entirely human, secular personages — sweet, 
serious, philanthropic women, whom one would like to number 
among one's friends. 

During the artist's last years he was engaged upon the illustra- 
tions for a Psalter for Count Carl Wolfgang von Ottingen, which is 
now in Berlin Print Room. In these he does not follow his text at 
all closely, but, instead, gives us interesting glimpses of the life 
of his own day, picturing, with gay freedom and fancifulness, 
scenes from the hunt, from war, and from the life of the street. 
Here and there the need for the Reformation movement is 
brought out by the representations of the immorality, the de- 
bauchery of the monastic orders. None of Schaufelein's works 
is more attractive than this Psalter. It reveals him at his best 
as an artist who, though without real accuracy of drawing 
presents attractive types, without real depth of emotion or imag- 
ination infuses charm into his pictures, partly by beauty of his 
people, but principally by a certain Swabian quality of grace- 
fulness in his story telling. 




Photograph by Fried. Hoefle, Augsburg 



HANS LEONHARD SCHAUFELEIN 

St. Jerome in the Wilderness 
germanic museum, nuremberg 




Photograph by Fried. Hoefle, Augsburg 

MASTER OF MESSKIRCH 

Virgin Adored by Saints 
gallery, donaueschinqen 



PITIES AND FOLLOWERS OF DURER 279 

A pupil of Hans Schaufelein whose art reveals an unusual, 
quaint personality has been named the Master of Messkirch from 
his altar-piece in the parish chinch in the village of Messkirch, near 
Ulm, which was painted between 1520 and 1540. Some authorities 
have identified him as the Swabian painter Jorg Ziegler. 

The middle section of the Messkirch altar, which is still in the 
church, represents the Adoration of the Kings, while three pictures 
from the wings, in Donaueschingen Gallery, present Saints Mary 
Magdalen, Martin and John the Baptist, with the donors, the Count 
and Coimtess von Zimmern. It is, indeed, in this interesting gallery 
which Prince Fiirstenberg maintains in the little town at the source 
of the Danube, that we can best make acquaintance with this master, 
though representative works are to be found in Munich Pinakothek 
and elsewhere, and an especially charming small altar is in the 
collection of Prince Hohenzollern in the Castle at Sigmar- 
ingen, at the other end of this picturesque bit of the 
Danube valley. What attracts us first to his pictures is the un- 
usual type of his people, who all bear such a marked "family" 
resemblance to one another that the works of the master are 
readily recognised wherever seen. The women are round-faced, 
like those in Schaufelein's pictures, but much more so; they are 
less dignified, more childishly pretty; the men wear their hair in 
smooth, regular curls, while their beards are blown quite to one 
side. The chins are very short, the mouths small with curving 
lips, the noses short and rather broad, the cheeks chubby, the 
eyelids full. The figures are usually small of stature and plump; 
the draperies are exceedingly full. The colouring is very light, 
the flesh tones quite pink and white, the hair blond. The 
painter tells his stories in an old-fashioned way with, here and 
there, even an archaic touch, as the introduction into the scene of the 
Crucifixion of the sun and moon with human faces. But his old- 
fashioned manner has its own charm which, with the fresh youth- 
fulness of his people and the childishly eager and sentimental atti- 
tudes they assume, gives his pictures an attraction all their own. 

To the second generation of Durer's pupils belonged Georg 
Pencz and the brothers Hans Sebald and Barthel Beham. They 
were all about the same age, Pencz and Hans Sebald Beham having 



280 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART 

been born in the same year, 1500, and Barthel Beham in 1502. 
All three were hot-blooded and enthusiastic young thinkers or 
visionaries, members of the extreme socialistic faction which had 
developed among the supporters of the Reformation and which 
gathered about Thomas Munzer as its leader when he came to 
Nuremberg in 1524. They were evidently rashly outspoken, for 
they were summoned before the City Council charged with atheism 
and socialism and were sentenced to banishment from the city. 
This banishment did not last long, however, for all three were 
back in Nuremberg after but a short time. The very next 
year indeed, 1525, Georg Pencz received permission to settle very 
near Nuremberg, in Windstein. In 1532 he became painter 
to the Nuremberg City Council; in 1550 he died in Breslau, in 
great need. 

Georg Pencz was chiefly active as an engraver and of his pic- 
tures few except portraits remain to us. The frescoes in the City 
Hall in Nuremberg are supposed to have been painted by him after 
designs by Diirer but they have been so retouched that it is impos- 
sible to verify the attribution. In the Germanic Museum is his 
coloured drawing of the Schonbrunnen, which in all repaintings of 
the famous old fountain serves as a guide to the original colouring. 
Sandrart, the chronicler, records that he saw a room in Volkamer's 
Pleasure Garden painted by Pencz "as if the room were not yet 
built and all the carpenters were at work . . . against a sky with 
clouds and flying birds, all most natural." Of his altar-pieces only 
one remains to us, the "Adoration of the Magi," in three sections in 
Dresden Gallery, which presents, in front of a ruined palace, a 
scene quite similar to that in Hans von Kulmbach's picture with the 
same subject. 

In his later life the painter came under the influence of Michael 
Angelo's gigantic forms, with the result that his types became huge 
and his colouring cold, as in the "Caritas Romana" in the Harrach 
Gallery, Vienna, which was painted in 1546. Yet this influence, 
which was so injurious to his other works, seems only to have lent 
to his portraits a more idealised, purified naturalism. That is to 
say, while the presentation remained lifelike, the painfully minute, 
oftentimes hard execution of so many of the German portrait painters 



PUPILS AND FOLLOWERS OF DURER 281 

gave way to breadth of treatment. The finest of these portraits is, 
perhaps, that of Jorg Herz, a Nuremberg goldsmith, which was 
painted in 1545 and is now in Carlsruhe Gallery. It presents, in 
three-quarter length, a man seated, wearing a beautiful black 
cloak richly trimmed with fur and holding in his left hand a pair of 
pincers. The head is almost bald, the beard short, the lips tightly 
set, the large eyes sharp and keen and the whole expression one 
of great energy, forcefulness and business acumen. In this, as in 
all his portraits, Pencz takes great delight in the accessories, and 
seems to revel in the brightness of mirrors, the transparency of 
glass, the light of a fire, and in reflections and shadows. 

A portrait drawing from his own hand, in the Albertina, Vienna, 
introduces us to Georg Pencz's friend and fellow artist, Hans Sebald 
Beham. It presents him as a vigorous, indeed rough-looking young 
man, with large features and thick nose and lips, but with such a 
penetrating glance and so evident a sense of humour as to awaken 
the suspicion that in this picture of himself he wilfully indulged 
in exaggeration almost to the point of caricature. 

Hans Sebald's term of banishment evidently expired before 
1528, for his name is to be found in that year on the list of paint- 
ers in the city; in 1530 he was in Munich; in 1531 back again in 
Nuremberg and engaged, in company with Nicholas Glockendon, 
upon the illustrations for Cardinal Albrecht of Brandenburg's Prayer- 
book, which is now in Aschaffenburg Castle. Four of the full-page 
cuts, "Confession," "Penance," "Meditation" and "Communion," 
bear his monogram H.S.B. They are very clear and well-balanced 
in composition and the individuals are given with much lifelikeness. 
The great Cardinal seems to have been strongly attracted by the 
artist and his work, for in 1534 he induced him to take up his 
residence near him, in Frankfort-on-Main, where he remained until 
his death in 1550. Although he was engaged during that period 
on engravings and drawings for woodcuts, for the most part, he 
painted for the Cardinal a table top, now in the Louvre, on which 
he pictured four scenes from the life of King David; his Trium- 
phant Return after a Victory, the Death of Uriah, Nathan re- 
proving David and Bathsheba's Bath — in which the King is seen 



282 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART 

on a remote balcony while Cardinal Albrecht and his suite occupy 
the immediate foreground. 

Hans Sebald's brother Barthel, who had also suffered expul- 
sion from Nuremberg, returned there in the late twenties, and, in 
1530, became court painter to Dukes Louis and Wilhelm of 
Bavaria. In 1540 he went to Italy, where, judging from his 
pictures, he had undoubtedly spent some time earlier in his career. 
In the same year, 1540, he died. 

One of his most interesting pictures is the "Miracle of the Cross," 
in Munich Pinakothek, which he painted in 1530 for Duke Wilhelm 
IV of Bavaria and which is signed with his full name. The scene 
is laid in an open square surrounded by Renaissance buildings, like 
a piazza in Rome. The theme of the picture is the awakening 
of a woman from the dead, by virtue of the power of the true cross. 
Men and women, bishops and other distinguished churchly and 
worldly personages in the varying costumes and headdresses of 
the period throng the scene. The figures are large and stately; 
the women have the round faces and short chins characteristic 
of the feminine ideal of the whole group of painters to which 
Barthel Beham belonged. The composition, though crowded, is 
well ordered, the movement very restrained, indeed so restrained 
that we doubt the sincerity of its emotional quality; such a mir- 
acle warrants more self-forgetfulness on the part of those dames 
and dignitaries who are standing or kneeling there so self- 
consciously. The scene itself, the architectural setting, the shim- 
mering silks and the joyous colouring cannot fail to call to mind 
the great Venetian decorator, Paul Veronese. 

As court painter to the Dukes of Bavaria the younger Beham 
naturally painted many portraits of members of the reigning family. 
Fifteen of these in Schleissheim Castle are, for the most part, mere 
craftsman's work; but an occasional careful and expressive portrait 
such as that of Duke Philip, 1534, in Schleissheim, or that of 
Elector Otto, 1535, in Augsburg Gallery, makes comprehensible 
Sandrart's judgment that "some portraits from his hand yield 
place to none others in art and delicate beauty." 

In the works of Diirer and Holbein German art reached its 



PUPILS AND FOLLOWERS OF DURER 283 

zenith, and with their passing it began to decline rapidly. For a 
bare quarter of a century, as we have seen, the pupils and followers 
of Diirer continued to work more or less in his manner and to retain 
the distinctive, external characteristics of German art; but even in 
their works the signs of change and decay are easy to read. No super- 
ficial cause, but the spirit of the age was at the root of this decline. 
The faith of the Middle Ages was a thing of the past. Luther had 
opened the eyes of the mind to look into those dogmas of the church 
which had been so long accepted without question; had upset the 
dictatorship of organised authority over men's thoughts and beliefs; 
in short, had established the individual instead of the organisation 
as the norm. It was inevitable that upon this overturning of the 
accepted and traditional, excesses should follow; that extremists 
should before long push the new individualism, on the civic side 
into socialism, on the religious into agnosticism. Three of Diirer's 
own pupils of the younger generation were banished from Nurem- 
berg for a time as socialists and atheists. Fanatics and dema- 
gogues urged the Reformation forward with a zeal and a 
lamentable extravagance that wrought more harm to Luther and 
to his cause than did his bitterest enemies. The picture-storming 
riots, the Anabaptist heresy, the Peasants' War — these were 
some of the developments, which, in spite of his loyalty to Luther, 
caused Wilhbald Pirkheimer to exclaim, "the new Evangelical 
knaves make the Popish knaves seem pious by comparison!" Yet 
these outbreaks were natural enough, indeed almost inevitable. 
The picture-storming was but a voicing of the protest against dic- 
tation in matters of belief, that is to say, in favor of intellectual 
individualism, and the Peasants' War was but the attempt to 
assert by force the individual's social rights. 

But the very existence of this individualism which cried so 
loudly and oftentimes so insanely out of these religious and social 
happenings meant death to German art. It was not merely that, 
in some cities, works of art were destroyed by wholesale, although 
that was discouraging enough to the artists and deterred them from 
the practice of art in those cities. But it meant that an atmosphere 
was created in which no great art was possible. It was Richard 
Wagner who said that it is indispensable to a great art era that a 



284 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART 

whole people shall be taken possession of by a common ideal, a 
universal emotion. Germany had now become a seething mass of 
almost as many varieties of faith and ideals as there were 
individuals. No longer could the artist put heart and soul into the 
representation of a great religious scene and know that it would call 
forth a sympathetic response, an answering faith and enthusiasm in 
all those of his nation who looked upon it. No longer were his 
pictures spontaneous confessions of his own faith and of the faith of 
a whole people, as they were in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries 
and in those early years of the Reformation when Luther was arousing 
men's hearts to a fuller realisation of man's nearness to the unseen 
world and a warmer response to God's wondrous love and sacrifice 
for men. Probably the artist himself had lost his old interest and 
faith, or at least had adopted a different — a critical — attitude toward 
it, as had his public; they had all become outsiders and onlookers, 
critics not creators. Even Holbein had arrived at this detach- 
ment and saw things from the outside, though, as a truly great 
spirit, with such sincerity and nobility that no consciousness of it 
mars the truthfulness and dignity of his work. Yet he early ceased 
to paint religious pictures and devoted himself to the form of art 
which alone can flourish abundantly in an individualistic age — 
portrait painting. 

By way of supplying this lack of an absorbing universal interest, 
and of satisfying their own and their nation's new skeptical, critical 
demands, the painters turned to Italian art, with its clear con- 
sciousness of its ideals, its formal logic, its assurance of external 
beauty. They adopted its subjects, historical, mythological and 
allegorical, its types and its classical canons, and their art settled 
swiftly into the dry and meaningless craftmanship that turns out 
pictures according to academic formulae. For two centuries 
there was, therefore, no German art as such and it is only in our 
own age that, with the birth of a new national spirit, we have 
seen the promise of a new, national, German art. 



INDEX OF PAINTER'S NAMES 



Aldegrever, Heinrich. SI 

Altdorfer, Albrccht. G, 164, 165, 202-211, 272, 

Altdorfer, Ulrich, 203 

Amberger, Christoph, 172, 173 

Apt, Urich, 171 

Arnold, Master, 212 

Asper, Hans, 13G 

Baldung Grun, Hans, 122-12G, 202, 203 

Bechler, Heinrich, 133 

Beck, Leonhard, 171, 172 

Beham, Barthel, 271, 279, 280, 282 

Beham, Hans Sebald, 271, 279. 2S0, 2S1 

Beke, Joos van der, van Cleve, see Master of 

the Death of Mary 
Benedict, Lucas, 246 
Benessius, Canonicus, 16 
Berthold (Landauer), Master, 37, 38, 215-222, 

229 
Bertram (van Byrde). Master, 41-53 58. 59, 

65, 215, 221. 
Bink, Jacob, 80 
Bock, Hans, 134 
Borneman, Heinrich, 59 
Breu (Brew, Prew), Jorg, the Elder, 152, 170 
Breu, Jorg the Younger, 170 
Brosamer, Hans, 96 
Bruyn, Arnt, 79 
Bruyn, Barthel, 78, 79 
Bruvn, Barthel the Younger, 79 
Burgkmair, Hans, 128, 161-168, 170 
Burgkmair, Hans the Younger, 169-171 
Burgkmair, Toman, 161 

Cleve, Joos van, see Master of the Death of 

Mary 
Conrad (Stollen) of Soest, Master, 81, 82 
Cranach, Johannes Lucas, 86, 96, 115, 116, 136 
Cranach, Lucas, 86-93, 114-116, 210 
Cranach, Lucas the Younger, 87, 96, 97 

Daig, Hans, 132 

Daig (Deig, Taig), Sebastian, 149, 150 

Dax, Paul, 192 

Deutsch, Nicholas Manuel, see Manuel 

Diinwegge, Heinrich, 84 

Diinwegge, Yictor, 84 

Durer, Albrecht, 5-9, 64, 65, 80, 84, 102, 103, 
106, 122-124, 126-128, 131, 168, 187, 202, 
204, 209, 230-232, 237-239, 242, 246, 248- 
276, 280, 282, 283 

Durer, Hans, 271, 272, 274 

Dyg, Hans, 132, 133 



Eisner, Jacob, 244, 245 

Feselen, Melchior, 207. 211 

Francke, Master, 52-59 

Frass, Leo, 169 

Frelich, Laux, 169 

Fries, Hans, 133 

Frueauf, Rueland, 191 

Frueauf, Rueland the Younger, 241, 242 

Funhof, Heinrich, 59 

Futerer, Ulrich, 198 

Fyol, Conrad, 102 

Fyol, Hans, 102 

Fyol, Sebald, 102 

Giltinger, Gumpolt, 169 
Glockendon, Nicholas, 281 
Gothland, Peter, see Roddelstadt 
Graf, Urs, 133, 134 
Grimmer, Hans, 103 
Grun, Hans Baldung, see Baldung 
Griinewald, Matthaus, 5, 7, 88, 104-116, 123, 
124, 126, 159, 178, 202, 207 

Haller, AndriS, 193 

Hans, Maler zu Schwaz, 142, 143 

Herbst or Herbster, Hans, 132, 169 

Herlin, Friedrich, 145, 147-149 

Herrad von Landsperg, 15 

Herzog, Johann, 152 

Hess, Martin, see Master of the House Book 

Hildegard, Master, 80 

Holbein, Ambrosius, 132, 136, 1G8, 174 

Holbein, Hans the Elder, 132, 134, 151-160, 

168, 174, 177, 178 
Holbein, Hans, 79, 80, 174-187, 282, 284 
Holbein, Sigmund, 178 
Huber, Wolf, 211 

Isenmann, Casper, 127-129 

Joos van der Beke van Cleve, see Master of the 

Death of Mary 
Joost, Jan, von Calcar, 77 

Katzenheimer, Wolfgang, 247 

Klauser, Jacob, 134 

Kluber, Hans Hug, 134 

Konigsweiser, Heinrich, 98 

Koerbecke, Johann, 83 

Krell, Hans, 96 

Krell, Hans the Younger, 96 

Krodel, Matthias, 98 

Krodel, Wolfgang, 97 

Kulmbach, Hans Suess von, 246, 271-275, 280 



285 



286 



INDEX OF PAINTER'S NAMES 



Landauer, see Berthold 
Lebenbacher, Friedrich, 28 
Leu, Hans, 136 

Lochner, Stephan, 63-69, 217, 221 
Lon, Gert von, 83 

Masselkirchner, see Mochselkirchner 

Maler zu Schwaz, see Hans 

Manuel Deutsch, Hans Rudolph, 136 

Manuel Deutsch, Nicholas, 135, 136 

Master of the Amsterdam Cabinet, 102, 103 

Master of Cappenberg, 84 

Master with the Carnation, 134 

Master of the Death of Mary (Jan Joos van der 

Beke van Cleve), 77-79 
Master of Frankfort, 101, 102 
Master of the Glorification of the Virgin, 71 
Master of Grossgmain, see Frueauf, 191 
Master of the Heisterbach Altar, 69 
Master of the High Altar, Heilsbronn, see 

Trautt, Hans 
Master of the Holy Kinship, 71-73, 77 
Master of the House Book, 102, 103 
Master L. F. (Leo Frass? Laux Freilich?), 161 
Master of Liesborn, 82, 83 
Master of the Life of Mary, 70, 71, 79 
Master of the Lyversberg Passion, 71 
Master of the Madonna with the Bean Blossom, 

61, 82, 221 
Master of Messkirch, see Ziegler, Jorg 
Master of the Pehringsdbrffer Altar, see Pley- 

denwurff, Wilhelm 
Master of the Przibram "Holy Family," 216 
Master of St. Bartholomew, 75, 76 
Master of the St. Clara Altar, 81, 215, see 

also Wynrich 
Master of the St. George Legends, 71 
Master of St. Severin, 73-76 
Master of St. Veronica, 63, see Wynrich 
Master with the Scorpion, 26, 192 
Master of the Sending Out of the Apostles, 245 
Master of Sigmaringen, 145, 148 
Master of Wittingau, 37, 215, 216 
Melem, Hans von, 80 
Mielich, Hans, see Muelich, 200 
Mielich, Wolfgang, 200 
Mochselkirchner (Masselkirchner), Gabriel, 

198 
Moser, Lucas, 117-120, 140 
Muelich, Hans, 200 
Miiller, Lucas, see Cranach 
Multscher, Hans, 137-140 

Nicholas of Bohemia, 212 

Olmdorfer, Hans, 198 
Ostendorfer, Michael, 211 
Otto, Master, 213 

Pacher, Friedrich, 193 

Pacher, Hans, 193 

Pacher, Michael, 193-197 

Pencz, Georg, 267, 271, 279-281 

Pfenning, Master, 222-228, 235 

Pleydenwurff, Hans, 228-235, 239, 240, 244, 

246 
Pleydenwurff, Wilhelm, 233, 237, 238, 240-245 



Pollack, Jan, 199, 200 
Pseudo-Grunewald, 88, 114-116 

Raphon, Hans, 94, 95 

Reichlich, Martin, 28 

Ring, Hermann torn, 85 

Ring, Ludger torn, 84, 85 

Ring, Ludger torn, the Younger, 85 

Ring, Nicholas torn, 85 

Roddelstadt, Peter, 98 

Sachs, Hans, 18 

Schaffner, Martin. 143-145 

Schaufelein, Hans Leonhard, 239, 271, 275-279 

Scheel, Sebastian, 192 

Schongauer, Ludwig, 131, 251 

Schongauer, Martin, 106, 127-131, 139, 140 

161, 236, 251 
Schopfer, Hans, 201 
Schopfer, Hans the Younger, 201 
Schriet, Nicholas, 102 

Schuhlein (Schuchlein), Hans, 139-141, 236 
Schwartz, Christoph, 173 
Schwarz, Martin, 150 
Simon of Aschaffenburg, 114, 116 
Springinklee, Hans, 272 
Slimmer, Tobias, 134 
Stitny, Thomas, 17 
Stollen, see Conrad 
Strigel, Bernhard, 143, 151 
Strigel, Ivo, 151 
Strigel, Johann, 150 
Strigel, Klaus, 151 
Stumme, Absalom, 59 
Suelnmeigr, N., 83 

Suess von Kulmbach, Hans, 246, 271, 272, 282 
Sunder, Lucas, see Cranach 
Sunter, Jacob, 26, 193 

Taig (Teig), Sebastian, see Daig 
Theodoric of Prague, 35-37 
Tom Ring, see Ring 
Tommaso da Modena, 35-37 
Trautt, Hans of Spires, 245, 246 
Trautt, Wolf, 246 
Troppau, Johann von, 18 

Van Byrde, Bertram, 41-53, 58, 59, 65, 215, 221 
Von Kulmbach, see Kulmbach 

Wernher von Tegernsee, 15 

Wertinger, Hans, 201 

Willehalm (Wilhelm) von Oranse, 17 

Wilhelm, Master, 61, 62 

Witz, Conrad, 120-122 

Woensam, Anton, 79 

Woensam, Jasper, 79 

Wolf, Hans, 246 

Wolgemut, Michael, 24, 140, 229, 231-240, 

243-246, 250, 255, 265, 276 
Wolgemut, Valentin, 232 
Wurmser, Nicholas, 35-37 
Wynrich, Hermann, 62 

Zeitblom, Bartolommaus, 141-143, 152, 168 
Ziegler, Jorg, 279 



H 165 85 «« 



S u 1 






/\ ^W 
















«*<jt 









^0 fk * 







L^ 







:.V V^^ > >*\.^:-X /^^^°o ^\>j^.:>« 



\v « • • 



^0* 



^ 



"by 



► v 












^ 







P-A, 




J^ 







'••• 



























' . V * \'Wj? V-^'>* v-^->* V 

^/ %/ •»• \/ .-^a- %y /*&■•- W \4 






v. --y^^*" ^ ^ 












^•o^ 






^/ * %,^ .-»^ \/ .-^k-- <w> .•;■ 












"bV 

i0t 









' 4 * G ... °* 



^-K '.1 






G°\ 



6* "o »o.T" A 



T-dA/^-f 



J>* 




\? »* V >- c> 

»v^ f ^ a 

~^ * \/ OTA'. ^ Xp <?■ ' 



* ^ v 













f "< 






.';■-' 



"•/ * >*\. ■v-^v v^ f v v-^V 



%■ 



* 9 >:*:»:._* - V 



\M 






*o <S> A ,' 



**r>4 - ^o^> -/; • * A r.4 









"• ^ o 



w*>**V- J 









l» « 1 • o . *^-i. < > ■ • • - 











v v ..»^%. ©. 






■- 









6&' ^ 



V 



;• «? *± -.vv^* v > 



♦ A^ J 






^"^A •? 
*" '**•, 



^-: 



.<&> «.<."«. ^ 



^ .' 



♦ ... ■*• 



"of ; . ^o*" -^ 



iP-f, 




















v.... 




"of 

> ^ 



o '- 7o' .0- 



**.^ /«»'•. V>* 



w »^5» % ^>^ v 



^ 



^"^ 






v *? 



^o, 









•A **mx°* <*\-^£kX <?*£mk°* <** -^\ 








»'- "of 







"J^ e o" • - <S>„ 



J* V • 








: **•+& 



"oV 



5 »**°' > 



^/^•'\y 



", > ^. V 




t v 



*W* :20K: ^/ 









HECKMAN 

BINDERY INC. 



JAN 85 











4* ' 







■>o^ 



' ' ■« * «v 



^ V 4 * • > 



